Luka 02: A Big Grip on the Small Picture
Charlie was in the shit. The enemy had been smart enough to lay a trap.
In the air you see a bigger picture. Out the window and on your displays. Combat aircraft are integrated platforms that collect and share data across the battlefield. Intelligence in real-time. Information is what determines how you use your weapons and when. The right targets with the minimum number of strikes is a goal. You don’t shoot for the sake of shooting. Flying itself is all about limits. Your fuel, time, capacity, weapons, vulnerabilities, information, decisions. Your survival and that of your allies. You are the biggest limiting factor and training is all about lowering those limits and expanding your envelope so that you are the most effective, efficient weapons platform you can be.
Communications gives you a feel for both the smaller and the distant, bigger picture. An infantry platoon’s comms patch puts you in direct touch when you provide Close Air Support (CAS). Patched in, their fire controller relays tactical information that enables you to make decisions about how to help them. Far away, base provides orders, big picture information and sends data and targets into our tactical display.
“Spear one seven. Spear one seven. Battle Charlie. Battle Charlie. Confirm.”
“Battle Charlie. Spear one seven. Confirm.”
I, Spear 17, was now confirmed talking to a mechanised infantry unit, Battle Charlie. They would relay situational information as we approached their position to provide them with CAS.
The strict radio format was always to start with the callsign of who you're talking to, followed by the callsign of who is doing the talking, then the message.
“Spear 17. Battle Charlie. Negative datalink. Status ready.”
Charlie told us they didn’t have the datalink system that connected them to the central Automated Command and Control System that we called “C2”, so we had to do things the old way and get them to give us all their information over our secure radio. When I punched the data into the Hokum’s systems, it would be sent back to base and update C2 for command and anyone else connected.
“Spear 17, Battle Charlie. Position grid one seven. 54 decimal 4, 31 decimal 6. Axis 330. Range 1500.”
I entered and checked Charlie’s data. Yaz confirmed that it matched what he had heard and that he understood it tactically. He could see what I’d plotted on our tactical map display. It automatically updated base.
We began to build a picture of the situation. “Axis 330” meant that Charlie was engaging the enemy in a compass direction of 330 degrees, so the enemy was to their north west, 1500 metres away. They were within firing range of bigger guns and enemy missiles like Javelins or NLAWs.
“Battle Charlie, Spear 17. Pass fire mission.” I needed their targets.
“Spear 17, Battle Charlie. Fire mission. Grid 17. 54 decimal 5, 31 decimal 8. Mike India. 2 APC. Hull Down. Tower block. Infantry disbursed inside tower block. Caution Air Defence”. I punched in the data and marked the targets. Mechanised infantry were covered (hull down) near a tower block, comprising two Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs). Enemy troops were out of the APCs and some were in the tower block. They had some kind of air defence missile that could shoot us.
Yaz was in the left seat, “head up” and flying. I was beside, “head down”, keeping an eye on Yaz while running navigation, targeting and external communications. Combat flying is all encompassing, cognitively and physically. The Hokum is an incredible machine and when you’re skimming the treetops, totally in sync with your buddy, there’s nothing like it.
This was where we had to do a bit of thinking. From Charlie’s situation, we had to assess our approach to a firing position, consider the enemy’s ability to shoot us, and decide how to make an effective attack without getting killed. Misidentify the target and we might fire on our own guys. Being in their firing axis was full on dangerous. With our laser-guided missiles we could make distant attacks up to 10 km away. With rockets and guns, which were effective and accurate inside 4 km, we would have to get closer. It was all about dynamic risk and success probability.
We’d stay behind Battle Charlie, 5km from their target so out of range of handheld Stinger and Javelin missiles. We would climb and use the TV and Infra Red IR systems to look for the target tower block then find the APCs. We had four laser guided Anti-Tank missiles, rockets and canon, and two air-to-air missiles. We had choices. There was no need to go in close yet. We wanted to avoid giving the enemy a chance to fire a missile at us. They might fire the missile at Charlie, but that was Charlie’s problem.
The enemy was on the outskirts of a built up area of tower blocks, so we could keep our distance. We didn’t know what was further into the town. Battle Charlie was the first unit to engage. Our lines were moving northwards, outside the town on its eastern side. This was just the start of the “Special Military Operation”.
“Battle Charlie, Spear 17. Distance attack, negative ingress. Standby.” Charlie knew we weren’t flying in to cross their line of advance and were doing our thing. Patience, lads.
We were flying north, closing on Charlie with 15 kms to run. We found Charlie with our targeting gear, so we knew not to shoot them. That was more important than shooting the enemy. East of Charlie, distant to our front right, was a large, tall solo building - some kind of industrial complex that would give us a cover option. We knew that building was clear because other units of ours were already beyond it.
Razza and Ilya were Spear 2 - our wingman. We were the lead in a pair.
“Spear 2. Spear 17. On break track 250, 2k low hold watch. Air defence.” We gave Razza and Ilya our plan in the form of an order.
“Spear 17. Spear 2. On break track 250, 2k low hold watch. Air defence.” Razza’s repetition of my order to him told me he had received and understood the order.
The order meant that he would fly with us until I told him to “break”. Then he would turn left to 250 degrees - west southwest - and fly a 2km long, low altitude race track pattern. He would look for the enemy APCs and other threats while flying that pattern. Staying low meant that the enemy might not see him and would give us a degree of surprise from his direction, until he was revealed or spotted. His race track pattern would bring him back near Charlie. On his run back to Charlie, he could keep looking and covering Charlie and roughly us. He knew air defence was against us and could fly appropriately. At the break point, Yaz and I would turn right onto a compass heading of 060 - north east - fly low and hunt for the targets as well while we went to the solo building. Together, we would be flying lines that enabled us to look towards the target area in a wide sweep but did not advance into their missile range.
“Any contact?” Yaz wanted to know if I’d seen anything with our targeting systems.
“Charlie visual…” I had Charlie on the TV display, then flicked to infra red black hot. Zooming out I could see that they were three APCs, one behind the other in line formation, on a thin road amongst trees. Their troops were spread out amongst the trees. No point having them in the vehicles if a missile came in.
I zoomed the camera out, slewed up and across. Small buildings. A tower block.
“2.5km to break. Hunting.” I told Yaz of the distance to our turn and that I was still hunting for the targets.
“Spear 17. Spear 2. Contact. Single APC. Hull down 100m left mark.” Razza had spotted an APC in the target area, left of the tower block. First of two.
I found it as well, but needed to find the second.
“Spear 2, Spear 17. Visual APC. My target. Standby to break.” We had 500m to the break point.
“You happy?” I asked Yaz.
“Happy.”
“Spear. Break,” was my clipped order to our wingman and to Yaz.
Yaz put in the right turn to the northeast. The ground filled my peripheral vision on my right side. It felt like we sped up and were diving but it was a visual trick. I scanned the instruments to monitor the turn. 120 knots, 50m. Rock solid speed and altitude. I looked up to the right at the terrain ahead. Flat, trees and open ground. We didn’t need to climb yet. The targeting pod was slaved to where I left it. The APC was gone from sight behind the block, but we would see it again soon as our new line progressed. As we rolled level, I could see the solo building ahead and to the left in the windshield.
“Good turn 060. Visual with the building…” I pointed, “…lost the APC. Hunting.”
“Climbing 300 metres. Detection on.” Yaz declared our climb that would give us more view. Our threat detection system was on. It could tell us if they were locking us up with a radar to fire. It could also track objects that moved like missiles, even if they were using passive infra red. Seeing, detecting, manoeuvring, or countermeasures could deal with the missile threat but evasion wasn’t guaranteed.
Popping up gave us a view angle down amongst the buildings so we could see more for a while. In our climb, the first APC came back into my view. It wasn’t a threat to us yet and only had a gun.
“3 km to the building. Targets?” Yaz said.
“One APC. No men open, no air defence seen. Options?”
“Good to take both APCs together. One kill might cause the second to flee. We can’t blow the tower block. Priority is kill air defence.”
God would not be happy if we took the tower block down with civilians inside. If a missile crew was in that building, that was tricky. Taking out the APCs from here would enable Charlie’s advance.
“Battle Charlie, Spear 17. Request.” I called Charlie to get more information.
“Go.”
“Pass type and location air defence. Any civilians. Pass status and intentions.”
“Confirm one vehicle Javelin. Possible foot mobile Stinger in building. Civilians unknown. Status, no visual, static. Intent, close on your strike.”
“OK, brother,” I mulled, “They want to wait for us, and there’s two missiles. One in the building, one on the other APC. Get the vehicles then the men.”
“Spear 17. Spear 2.” Razza called. “Visual second air defence APC, 200m north mark. Static. Can maintain.” Razza had a firing solution on the other APC with the anti-air missile.
“Let’s cover at the building.” Yaz said. He aggressively descended while I looked for any more possible targets amongst the buildings. I felt my head pressing down as Yaz pulled the nose up and put some power on to quickly slow us, inducing positive G-force. Pulling my heavy head up revealed this solo industrial building half filling the windshield. Time flies when you’re having fun. Tactical display showed two of our tanks moving west towards the town from this solo building, and a wider line of mixed units to the right of the tanks, all moving north. Target data in the town didn’t reveal anything other than the APCs on our side.
“Mother Bravo, Spear 17. Request target refresh and drone status for Grid 17 proximate.” I asked base to update our tactical display with any extra information and to tell us when our drone was meant to be in the area. It should have been here already.
“Spear 17, Mother Bravo. Refreshing. Drone inbound, ETA 3 minutes, no strike, 5 minute cycle.”
For fuck’s sake. The drone wasn’t even here yet and it had no weapons. When it arrived, it would need 5 minutes to sweep and send data into our display. Basically, there was a bloke at base watching the drone feed. He put any new targets into C2 for us to see.
The datalink refresh came in. There was nothing but our own targets from Charlie.
I heard Yaz let go a deep breath into his mic as he pulled up right behind the building in a hover, turning to looking at the town. Yaz hovered just above the height of the building. We had to be quick because this was an obvious place for someone with scopes to be looking for us.
We could kill our targets and Battle Charlie could engage the troops. The longer we waited now, the longer all enemy units had to position and ready. The drone would always be useful once it arrived and revealed targets.
“Hull down,” I said to Yaz, so that we sank below the building to hide from missiles. We lost the lock on the APC but we needed that time to talk to base, get instructions and confirm our orders and any strike.
“Mother Bravo, Spear 17. Request orders and clearance to engage.”
“Spear 17, Mother Bravo. Clear to engage at your discretion with Battle Charlie. Heavy one four to join and support.” We could attack with Charlie and had just been assigned a tank, Heavy 14, to fight with us.
“Spear 17, clear engage our discretion. Heavy one four. Welcome.”
“Heavy one four on frequency. Dur-dur durrr!”
I smiled as the tank commander in Heavy 14 made a silly trumpeting noise over the radio. He sounded happy for now. In a few minutes that might change. Heavy 14 to our right meant we had a spread of force.
“Battle Charlie, Spear 17. Mount for advance. Engaging.” I told Charlie to get ready to advance, and that we were attacking.
“Copy. God speed,” Charlie replied.
I looked across at Yaz. He looked back, raised his eyebrows high, breathed in deep and out heavy, nodded. I saw him swallow hard.
“Pop up to fire, then go back towards the break point at 80 knots.” I instructed Yaz.
“Allahu ahkbar. God speed, brother.” That was a long way of saying, “Affirm.”
Yaz put on the power and we rose up to roof level. The targeting was still slaved to where the APC had been. I zoomed out to get wider view in case it had moved. Dumb bastard was still there. Locked.
“Spear 2, Spear 17. Engage.”
“Engaging.” Razza could fire.
Yaz released our first missile. Razza was doing the same. Despite the noise cancelling headsets inside our helmets, we could still hear the environment and the chopper itself. You needed to, it was just amped down for comfort. A very quick hiss became a harsh roar as flaming light and smoke burst into my left field of view and the missile was away and forwards. The smoke trail disappeared after a couple of seconds but that just told everyone where we were. It was a laser guided missile and we had the laser, so we needed to keep the lock. Yaz tilted us left to start moving then yawed left to swing the nose around properly. Dipping the nose with power on accelerated us back the way we had come. Despite Yaz’s manoeuvre, the targeting system stayed locked. The missile’s hot rocket engine was in view on the screen now as a back hot, fizzing, jiggling dot.
“Two more seconds…” I muttered. “Good hit! Accelerate. Hunting.”
The APC flashed out on the display in black as the missile struck, then I lost view behind the block. I couldn’t confirm the kill but it would be in trouble. The missile was an overpowered weapon to employ against that target and its armour. Even a close ground strike would disable it.
“Spear 17, Spear 2. Air defence APC kill confirmed. Tracking to break point. ETA 60 seconds.”
“Copy. Our APC hit. Scan on your run to confirm our kill. Re-join with us. Tracking to break point, altitude 50m. ETA 50 seconds.”
So far, so good. Hopefully Battle Charlie would make it to cover without being hit.
Ilya re-joined formation again only for thirty seconds or so, just to give Yaz the finger and call us a “shit shot” then they climbed to 500m while following our exact but lower route. Ilya wouldn’t stay up for long, just enough for Razza to do a full radar and infra red sweep to keep our western and northern flank clear, and spot early inbound forces. Targets of opportunity or threat could be anywhere around. Sweeping with one high and one low meant only one chopper would be visible.
“Battle Charlie Group, Heavy 14. Visual APC. Battle Charlie we have you visual. Remain hull down. Firing to kill.” Our tank, Heavy 14 put a round into the APC that we’d hit to make sure it was dead. If we hadn’t killed it, that shot would. The surrounding tower blocks’ windows would be gone by now. Even though we hadn’t hit the buildings the shockwaves were doing damage. No one in those buildings would be happy. Charlie’s engagement of the troops in the tower block would be the really tough bit.
“Spear 17, Spear 2. Radar contacts 8 and 10km, mixed, unidentified. No ra…” As I heard Razza speak, I was looking at my tactical display expecting his radar pings to appear on my display. But he cut his transmission off. Something was happening. I looked up and leaned forward to see the sky and spot him above.
“Spear 17, Spear 2. Air defence radar. MY LEAD MY LEAD. Diving to join. Break right, track to Charlie.”
“Copy. Right, altitude 50m.” Yaz snapped into a tight right turn as I marked all the new target blips as suspect air defence.
Fuck. Razza’s sweep had spotted something. The new contacts had radar that painted Razza and Ilya while they were up high. Ilya would have dumped some chaff and now they were in a hard dive to get back to us and low.
“Spear 17, Spear 2. Visual. Hi girls. Your lead.”
Yaz looked over his left shoulder. He flipped the bird in the window and made a fart noise over the radio. Ilya and Razza were back in position, left and slightly behind.
“You don't like heights, do you, Ilya?”. I could hear the big smile in Yaz's voice as he spoke to them and gestured a thumbs up in the window.
“Spear 17, Mother Bravo. Radar contacts confirmed, refreshing, dronelink complete.”
I waved my hand in front of the tactical map display as though I was a magician making a rabbit appear from thin air. Four new symbols appeared inside the town. The drone had spotted four new targets. Two were moving towards Charlie. One was a T-64 tank and another mech inf unit. The other two targets were undefined but that would come. The targeters at base cared first about giving us positions of units, then the actual type of unit.
“Spear 17. Battle Charlie. Assaulting tower block from cover. Suspect civilians inside. Caution air defence.” Charlie updated us. We could hear the APC’s gun firing in the background as he spoke to us. On this route we were heading straight for Charlie which was not useful. Yaz knew it straight away and turned to widen away and fly south of the town and Heavy 14 so we didn’t cross into the tank’s gun line or get too close to Charlie. Base could use the drone to direct artillery support or us onto the new targets.
Now an enemy T-64 approached our infantry but we had Heavy 14, an upgraded T-72. There was still a Stinger missile in the tower block. Charlie had to clear that precisely due to civilians.
Our tank would watch for the enemy tank and mech inf coming down the main roads towards Charlie, and engage them on sight. Heavy 14 was at risk from the T-64 and any troops with anti-tank weapons. There could be men hiding in buildings that even the drone wouldn’t spot.
“Target refresh. See, they are doing it.” Despite flying, Yaz spotted the tactical map update before I did. The two other targets turned out to be static artillery guns.
“Yep. They’re right in a residential area.” I said. “Look at the building density. If we can get high we could land shots in there. They’re two storey buildings.” This was our first direct experience of the enemy's rumoured shitty tactics of putting weapons right in civilian areas, right here in this town.
“Yeah, let’s see. Endurance one hour confirmed. Bingo fuel in forty minutes for Rally 68. Thirty minutes for base.” Yaz’s fuel awareness was baked-in. It was in all of us. Fuel is life. “Bingo fuel” was the level of fuel we needed to leave the fight with, in order to make base or Rally 68, a refuel point. Both choppers would leave together when the first chopper got to bingo limits.
I felt uneasy about the possibility that base would make us attack the artillery hidden amongst the buildings. Our weapons would batter the surroundings. Anyone inside would be hurt. If that artillery could target any of our forces, they could hurt us. Base could see activity at those guns via the drone and probably determine when they were ready to fire.
The enemy T-64 had stopped against a big building in a major road junction, from where it could move in multiple directions. The mech inf was moving slowly across town but hadn’t been seen by Heavy 14 yet.
Base told all other units to bypass the town. Moving targets are harder for enemy artillery to hit. Base sent us to hold north east of the town, while Heavy 14 and Charlie dealt with the troops in the tower block.
“All units, Mother Bravo. Be advised, fire mission inbound.” That was the first bit of base's solution: an artillery strike.
“The guns?” Yaz speculated for no reason. I looked out to the direction of the enemy artillery and started counting under my breath.
Smoke began to rise from behind the buildings. That was the enemy gun emplacement being hit by our artillery. The drone would be watching the strike. You don’t walk away from an accurate artillery strike and the smoke meant something that goes bang got hit.
“Battle Charlie, Mother Bravo. Be advised, your infantry target now exfil rear of tower. Suspect evac towards armour. Mount to pursue.” The enemy infantry were running out of the back of the tower block. Charlie couldn't see that but the drone could. Base wanted Charlie to chase down the running infantry. Our map update showed both the static artillery guns were dead.
Base ordered us to attack the T-64 and the mech inf. Ilya and Razza took the T-64. We took the mech inf that had three APCs. We decided make a simultaneous, same direction attack from the northern end of the town at high speed, then break off in opposite directions east and west, before we got too close to the town. From there, we could make a final, head-on attack run from east and west.
Charlie was in the shit. The enemy had been smart enough to lay a trap. Some missile crew were still in the tower block and had fired as Charlie’s second APC had come into their view. That vehicle got hit. Charlie’s last vehicle was hammering that area of the block with their gun while Charlie's lead vehicle kept moving to pursue the troops on the ground. Heavy 14 was waiting for us to attack the T-64 and force it to move.
On our attack run from north of the town, at 5 kilometers out, we both popped up to 300m for clear views.
“Fucking hell! They must have spotters. Mech inf is starting up.” I could see them reacting very quickly. The men huddling outside the APCs jumped onboard. Someone was watching us and must have seen us pop up. If the APCs moved fast and spread out that wasn’t great for getting a hit. If the spotters had missiles we could be in their range without us knowing where they were.
“Spear 2, Spear 17. Fire ASAP then break immediate,” I told Razza to take their shot as soon as possible. If there was a chance we could get a second strike in as the tank displaced, we wanted that chance before we fucked off to our refuel point.
The town had two parallel main roads that ran north-south. We were lined up with the right-most road and the APCs were on it in the open, but now they were moving over to the left main road, putting a whole block of buildings in my way. I couldn’t see unless we moved fast to line up with the left-most road, then I'd have a shot.
Yaz just hard pulled and rolled to get left, then violently swung the nose back down and rolled right to realign. A load of positive Gs with the sun flying across the cockpit, then the opposite in negative G and the sun going back where it came from. It felt like a nasty rollercoaster. It was so sudden I couldn’t control the targeting camera.
“Hnnn! I’ve got it…” Yaz was grunting with the G force but he knew what manoeuvre he was about to fly and was more ready, so as he rolled out he was already bringing the camera back for me. “Get on it, get on it! Snap fire then refine. Put two out!”.
It was great flying. He’d immediately given me what I needed - the correct repositioning of the whole aircraft - and he’d covered my surprise by taking control of the camera, all while instinctively righting the nose of the aircraft. Then he’d told me something to do that would work. I just had to do it. I could see the APCs but wasn’t locked. The front APC was going to escape. Our laser was on. I clicked the trigger, releasing a missile on my side and got the laser onto the second APC, then pumped the trigger again to get another missile out.
The first missile struck the front corner of the second APC and the blast blacked the screen. I just guessed where the third APC was likely to be and moved the laser there. I only had about two seconds between impacts. It was so quick that the screen flooded black again with the second strike before I saw enough of the scene to know what had happened.
Yaz did what he was meant to and slammed it into a hard left roll. My head snapped right. My ears were filled with Yaz’s cackling laughter and the sound of flares pumping out. The break kept going as Yaz rolled the nose downwards to lose height fast in the turn, then he settled out just above tree height.
“We got two but there’s one APC left.” I said. We had enough fuel for one more attack then we’d be leaving.
As we flew outbound skimming the trees, Yaz jinked left and right to shake any attempt to lock us. I reached down for my water bottle and took a swig. As he came back level it was time for a laugh.
“Fancy a drink?” I asked as I squeezed the bottle right into his face.
“Awww!” He spluttered into his mic. I think I got some up his nose. “Even close quarters you’re a shit shot! You missed my big fat mouth! Can I have some more?”. I made to put the bottle cap back on. When I thought he’d relaxed I quickly gave him a second round.
“Better! Ha, ha, ha!” We were both laughing out loud. “When we get back, I’m telling mum on you. Trying to drown me in the air!”
We were at the turn point to start our final attack. The tactical display had updated. One APC was dead. That was the third in line so my laser sweep worked. The second APC was static, next to the third. My hit wasn’t a confirmed kill. The first APC showed it was perpendicular on a road about 150 meters away from the kill site, but whether we'd see it on this run was unknown.
Yaz started the climb to get sight of where we thought the last APC was likely to be. I could only see the front half of the second APC. There was probably a body in the road beside.
“How long?” I asked.
“Another thirty seconds to perimeter. Come out, come out, wherever you are….”
But the remaining APC was either lucky, smart or scared. We couldn’t see him. We were nearly on bingo fuel.
“Exfil.” Yaz rolled left, traded height for speed in the turn then settled very low again. We headed south to put distance between us and the town. I looked back over my shoulder. From this low height just above the trees, three levels of the tower blocks were above us. We were accelerating for a quick escape then Yaz pulled right to cut southwest, just when we were abeam the site of the artillery guns that got hit earlier. Smoke was still rising from the location. I relaxed as a sense of completion rose up from my stomach, but I watched towards the smoke, wondering about the playground.
“Fuck! Flares NOW!” Pure luck that I was watching. A smoke streak rose above the trees from a roof near the artillery strike. “MISSILE! 4 O’CLOCK! BREAK LEFT! BREAK LEFT!”. Positive G again. Shadows wiped across the cockpit. I heard the pffftshh pffftshh noises of two flares as we turned.
“Where is it?” Yaz had no detection warning or threat display and couldn’t see it.
Pffftshh.
“No joy. Break Right!” I couldn't see it.
Pffftshh. G-force again. I pulled my head up and craned to see back towards the launch direction. Practically fuck all chance of actually seeing a missile in flight. They didn’t all put out a smoke or contrail. At least five seconds since launch. I was leaning up against the side window, eyes scanning across, above, below the horizon. Ten seconds had passed.
“We’re clear.” I said.
“Good, I’ve had enough now.” Yaz answered.
“Spear 2, Spear 17. Pass status.” I checked on Razza.
“Spear 17, Spear 2. Good. Exfil. Be advised, T-64 kill. Charlie still engaging. Heavy 14 free to support.”
Someone had killed the T-64. Ilya and Razza were unharmed. Escaping from the other side of town they may have seen Charlie, or talked to them. We’d been busy enough that I could've missed their radio chatter. Heavy 14 was now freed up without the T-64 in play so could focus on Charlie's fight. That was a good way to leave the battlefield for the time being.
“Mother Bravo, Spear is bingo fuel, exfil Rally 68. Thanks for the service. Back soon. Hang in Charlie.” I told Base we were leaving for our refuel point, Rally 68.
“Spear, Heavy. Stop by any time.” Our tank commander added a fart noise to end his farewell.
“I’m getting to like that guy, even if he just sits around all day,” said Yaz.
“Hey, be fair. He shot something we already hit. And he might have killed the T-64. And he… probably… has a lovely wife and two little girls, and hates the colour green.” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, back to the big decisions!” Yaz said.
“Which are?”
Yaz held up his fist in the middle of the cockpit.
“One!” He extended his thumb. “What are we having for lunch? Two…” He flipped me the bird. “What are we going to drink with it?”. There was his massive grin again.
We hadn't done enough to deserve opening the Bastardo. Not by a long way. The fighting had only just begun.