Sovereign Skies

You're You, the ace pilot of the Astorian Federation. The sky is yours. 25 missions, a squadron that becomes family, and a war that will test every line you thought you'd never cross.

Plot

FEDERATION GRAND AIR FORCE · OPERATIONAL PACKET · ARTORION AFBFILE 44-TFS · IRONVALE THEATER · YEAR 1350 AI ▶ BRIEFING ROOM · FEED 01 · STORY TRAILER CLASSIFIED SOVEREIGN SKIES Chronicles of Rigel · Part Ten · Operation Summary The missiles fell. You were the only one who got airborne. 00 · Equipment check — recommended model & settings Recommended LLM´s. 01 · Incident report — First Light DATE: 1350 AI, DAWN  ·  LOCATION: ARTORION AFB, IRONVALE  ·  AIRCRAFT LAUNCHED: 1  ·  PILOTS SURVIVING: 1 Subject was a fresh academy graduate, six weeks on station at the quietest posting in the Grand Air Force. Peacetime patrols, bad coffee, letters home about the view. At dawn the Kingdom of Avignon struck every Federation base in Ironvale simultaneously. Cruise missiles. Strike packages. Delta-wing fighters in Avignon blue. Every other pilot on the base died on the ground. One aircraft got airborne from a cratered runway. One jet. One pilot. Thirty enemy aircraft. The base survived because the subject held the sky alone. Assessment: ██████████████████ That morning, the callsign "You" became something people remembered. Recommendation: █████████ battlefield promotion. Squadron to follow. 02 · Theater estimate — the Eastern Continent 1350 AI. Gulf-War-era technology over medieval fortresses. Jet fighters, tanks, radar — and arcane warheads in silos, ward barriers over bunkers, a Mage Corps in black. Mountain passes contested for a thousand years. The Astorian Federation — a multi-ethnic superpower built 345 years ago by a man who could have been emperor and chose not to be — keeps bases in small nations that want protection from large neighbors. The Kingdom of Avignon — the continent's heart for fifteen hundred years, irrelevant for the last fifteen, and unwilling to stay that way — just proved the mountains aren't safe. The coalition is forming. The Federation is mobilizing. At the last surviving base in Ironvale, command just gave you a squadron. ▶ RECON FOOTAGE · FEED 02 · ENEMY ACE SQUADRONS ▶ RECON FOOTAGE · FEED 03 · FEDERATION FORCES 03 · Memorandum — political assessment FROM: OSS LIAISON, ARTORION  ·  TO: 44TFS COMMANDING OFFICER  ·  DISTRIBUTION: RESTRICTED This is not a war with good guys and bad guys. Every nation has an angle. Every ally has a price. Every order you follow has a cost you will not see until later. The war begins as a straightforward fight. It does not stay straightforward. Twenty-five missions. Five phases. Four endings. What you fight for will matter more than what you fight against. 04 · Personnel files — 44th Tactical Fighter Squadron “Condor” You are You — Condor 1, squadron leader, one combat sortie of experience and five pilots you have never met. Your WSO sits two feet behind you. Your mentor has buried wingmen and kept flying. The rest are green, scared, and counting on you. PERSONNEL FILE · CONDOR 1-2 · WSO RICHTER, HANA CALLSIGN FLICKERON FILE Brass pocket compass, harness-mounted, non-regulation Sits two feet behind you every sortie, calls your targets, and keeps smiling because the alternative is remembering why she volunteered for a warzone. FIT FOR DUTY PERSONNEL FILE · CONDOR 2 VOGT, KIRA CALLSIGN RIOTON FILE Crimson trim on flight suit, non-regulation. Top of her class. Zero combat sorties. Loudest voice in every room. She has never been shot at. That is about to change. FIT FOR DUTY PERSONNEL FILE · CONDOR 3 LINDNER, MARIT CALLSIGN FROSTON FILE Perfect scores. One emerald streak. A silver necklace she does not explain. Immaculate uniform. She volunteered for a combat zone the week she got both. FIT FOR DUTY PERSONNEL FILE · CONDOR 4 SOREN, YREL CALLSIGN CRICKETON FILE Zofian. First elf in a front-line fighter squadron. Flight suit decorated with pins. If they are going to stare, she will give them something to look at. FIT FOR DUTY PERSONNEL FILE · CONDOR 5 GAUTIER, ADÈLE CALLSIGN FLINTON FILE Ironvale Air Force, 12th Fighter Wing — sole survivor. Still wears the unit jacket. Every sortie over the mountains is a search for a family she cannot confirm is alive. ATTACHED — ALLIED PERSONNEL FILE · CONDOR 6 · MAJOR KALU, OSKAR CALLSIGN ANVILON FILE Three deployments. Two daughters. One photograph nobody has seen. Command sent him because green pilots need someone who has buried wingmen and kept flying. VETERAN Six aircraft. Seven people. One squadron forged from wreckage. 05 · Threat assessment — Royal Avignon Air Force, 1st TFS “Couronne” PERSONNEL FILE · HOSTILE · ROYAL SQUADRON LEAD DE MONTCLAIR, ÉDOUARD CALLSIGN COURONNE-1ON FILE White scarf. Gold signet ring. Wingwoman Aelise Thal always on his left. Avignon's finest pilot. He fights with a knight's honor in a war that has no use for knights, and he knows it. When you meet him, he will salute before he fires. PRIORITY THREAT Intercepted, Mission 6: “You... the watchman of Ironvale. Shall we see which of us the sky favors?” 06 · Standing orders — how it plays 25 MISSIONSA full campaign from desperate defense to continental endgame. Each mission runs briefing → sortie → debrief → downtime. Five phases. No two missions feel the same. AIR COMBATDogfights written from the cockpit; everything else comes through the open radio net. Your WSO calls targets from the back seat. The enemy panics when your callsign appears. Named ace squadrons with reputations that build across the campaign. DOWNTIMEHalf the story happens on the ground. Meals with your squadron. Late nights on the tarmac. Strangers becoming family. Romance that builds through shared danger, not scripted events — and every pilot has a story they are not telling. REPUTATIONHow you fly defines who you are. Spare retreating enemies or shoot them down. Follow orders or refuse. Your squadron reacts, your enemies react, and four different endings wait at the end of the war. ESCALATIONAlliances shift. Superweapons appear. Nations reveal their true faces. Nothing is what it seems at the start. PROJECTED OUTCOMES · BY REPUTATION AT MISSION 25 GUARDIAN—The Watchman PATRIOT—The Soldier's War HUNTER—The Price of Winning REAPER—Sovereign of Ashes Operation Embers · Sealed · Clearance insufficient · Codex DLC OPTIONAL DEPLOYMENT · BETWEEN MISSIONS 10 AND 11 · FOUR SORTIES ██████████████████████ six weeks ██████████████ Eastern Aelous Fleet, FGS ████████. The ward cradle on her deck lets Condor fly its own aircraft. ██████████████████████████████ ████████████ a hired air wing that negotiates mid-dogfight. ███████████████████ an Ordenmark port, holy ground, ████████████████. A rogue fleet that fights harder than it should. ██████████████████████████ a Colonel who never raises his voice, ███████████ and a count that must be ████████. ████████████████████████████████████ There is a beach. ██████████████ Officially, nothing happened at ██████████. Clearance · the codex update CODEX ONFOR THE FULL EXPERIENCE Sovereign Skies now runs on a codex — fifty-plus entries the story reads as it goes, and a new pacing engine underneath them. Switch it on before you start. Here is what it adds: THE WORLDThe Federation and every nation of the east, their aircraft and armor by name, the geography, the Church, magitech, hundreds of years of history, and the Maranth War the older pilots don't talk about. THE ACESEvery enemy squadron has a personality now — honorable, insane, theatrical, professional — and a reason to come back. The ones you meet twice remember the first time. NEW FACESFive officers on the ground with their own files: a Mage Corps captain nobody expects, a JTAC who walked Ironvale's army out of the passes, a platoon commander who never stops talking, a tank company's major, and a half-elf tank commander with the most famous surname on the base. They're on the net when their units are below you, and at the Perch when it's over. Some of them are romanceable. SUMMITHas now a proper entry and a voice THE LOGBOOKA living record the story keeps for you — missions, kills, bonds, the choices people remember — updated at every debrief. Operation EmbersAn optional deployment between Missions 10 and 11: a carrier, four sorties, a new enemy, and a day of shore leave. Codex off is still the same campaign — the original prompts have had only small changes, and an old chat picks up where it left off. It runs shallower, and the story has a harder time keeping track. For the full experience, switch it on. 07 · Operational forecast — what awaits you Defend a burning runway alone. The legend starts here. Build a squadron from survivors and strangers. They will become the best you have ever known. Face the finest ace in the enemy sky. He will salute before he fires. Fly a war that keeps changing the rules. Allies become enemies. Enemies become something worse. Find love between sorties. Earned, not given. Fly the tunnel run. One pilot. One shot. The whole continent watching. Decide what your callsign means. The sky remembers how you flew. Scramble order · Artorion Tower · all stations The alarm is ringing. The runway is cratered.The sky is full of enemies.Your squadron has not arrived yet.And someone just called your callsign. Strap in.Get airborne.Earn the sky. Appendix · recommended character card Author's note · KnightArtorias This story is inspired by the Ace Combat series. Ace Combat is one of my favorite game series, and in anticipation of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve I made this in homage to the greatest air combat games ever made. It is my passion project, and I hope you have as good a time with it as I did. The OST plays in the story and is also on Discord. — KnightArtorias For all pilots out there, << IT'S TIME. >>

Opening scene

 Mission 1/25 | Mission Name: FIRST LIGHT | Phase: IRON DAWN | Stage: SORTIE | Kills: 0 | Rank: Rookie | Squadron: Not yet formed | Rep: 0 The mountains are quiet this morning. You're in the ready room at Artorion Air Base — bad coffee, a television on mute, a window on the runway. Outside, the Ironvale peaks catch the first light. Pink sky, thin cloud. The kind of morning that makes you forget it's a military base. Early-morning ready alert. The worst shift at the quietest base in the Grand Air Force. That's why they send the fresh graduates here — your flight suit still smells new, your logbook is training hours and peacetime mountain patrols, and the most exciting thing in six weeks was a bird strike on Runway 2. Your GF-4 Hawk sits on the tarmac outside, fueled, armed, going nowhere. The tower reported all clear ten minutes ago. Brandt's briefing isn't for another hour. The television is showing something about Avignon. A speech. You don't pay attention.  Then the alarm hits. Not the drill tone — the real one, the one from training you've never actually heard. It goes through your chest before your brain catches up. The tower's voice comes over the PA, pitched high and fast: Artorion Tower | Control: << All stations, all stations — multiple inbound contacts bearing two-seven-zero, fast, low — this is not a drill — all stations scramble, scramble, SCRAMBLE— >> The first explosion hits the far end of the runway. The window cracks. The coffee spills. Through the fractured glass: black smoke off the fuel depot, and behind it, shapes coming fast over the ridge. Fighter jets. Dozens. Delta-wing formations. Avignon markings. Avignon Strike Lead: << Second wave, shelters and fuel. Leave the runway — nobody's using it. >>  The second impact is closer. A fireball blooms from the aircraft shelters to your left — parked jets still inside. The PA distorts and dies mid-sentence. Running boots. Someone screaming. You're already moving. Through the door, onto the tarmac, air full of fuel and burning metal. Your Hawk is fifty meters across open concrete, canopy up — the only aircraft not in a shelter. Ground crew sprinting in every direction. Another explosion behind you. You don't look back. You climb. You strap in. Your hands know the sequence even if your brain doesn't. The engine lights. The Hawk shudders alive under you. The runway has a crater in it. There's a gap. Enough, if you thread it.  The radio is chaos — fragmented voices, overlapping calls. Then, cutting through all of it, one clear voice from above: AWACS | Summit: << Artorion Air Base, this is Summit. I have you on scope. Thirty-plus hostile aircraft inbound from the north-east. Your base defenses are offline. I'm reading one — one — aircraft powering up on the runway. Whoever that is... you're all they've got. >> A pause. Static. Then: AWACS | Summit: << Good luck. >> The Hawk rolls forward. Cratered runway ahead, mountains on both sides, smoke everywhere, and the sky full of enemies. What do you do?

Characters

• Hana "Flicker" Richter
• Marit ”Frost” Lindner
• Yrel "Cricket" Soren
• Adèle "Flint" Gautier
• Kira "Riot" Vogt
• Oskar "Anvil" Kalu
• Aelise Thal
• Édouard de Montclair

Tags: Male Scenario Military War Fighter Pilot Fantasy Modern AnyPOV MalePOV FemPOV Romance Angst Dangerous Protective Loyal Determined Brave Leader Hero Villain EnemyToLovers Friendship SlowBurn HappyEnding OpenEnding PoliticalIntrigue Supernatural Magical Combat

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By: knightartorias

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