Mayday! Orange Bird-Three! There are two bandits remaining!
They're on me at six o'clock!
Fox-Two! Fox-Two! Help me out here!
Hurry up and get these MiGs off of me!
What are you doing, Rookie?!
Lieutenant...
Idiot! Did you forget your trigger back on the carrier?
He's got me! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
What are you doing?!
Are you gonna just sit there and watch your comrades die?!
Shoot that bastard down!
For the sake of your own guys, shoot him down!
Fire! Pull the trigger!
There's a person in there, Sir.
You idiot! Of course there is!
What the hell did you come here for?
But...
Fire! Patrick, fire!
Fateful Contrails
That Frank...
He goes acting all big just because he's got a tiny bit of talent.
Still, this really is the work of a professional photographer.
These pictures are on a whole different level.
That's just because he had a good model, don't you think?
Still, a little more exposure wouldn't hurt.
Whoa, it doesn't even look like it's me!
It's you, all right, the one and only.
Thanks!
Well, you're always letting me take shots.
What this, Shinjou?
Everyone's liked these a lot more than I expected.
You guys are always doing things for me, so l...
Hey! I've got some for you too!
I'm not interested.
Even you can make a face like this.
Do you remember that, Shin?
Hey, Shinjou!
Don't you have any of me?
When I find the negative, I'll develop them for you.
I'm countin' on ya!
Terrible news!
This time Frank's squad got hit!
What did he say?
That idiot Frank...
You're joking!
It can't be...
Frank! Hang in there!
A lizard...
A demon lizard!
Frank!
For somebody to take him out...
A lizard?
That makes a total of three operating forces we've lost now.
This is a grave situation indeed.
Judging from the call sign we were able to intercept,
one can speculate that the threat each of these forces encountered
was in fact the same enemy.
Frank, the only man to make it back alive,
has reported that the formation leader is a Flogger with a lizard as its nose art.
It's a MiG-23.
My Mirage will eat that lizard for breakfast.
Frank's unit was completely destroyed, and you know how good they were.
Don't underestimate this enemy.
It's just as Kazama says.
Frank's squad couldn't get behind the enemy even once,
and they were annihilated just two minutes after engaging in battle.
Not even once?
Did he say two minutes?!
Just two minutes...
Hey, did Frank say there was anything distinctive about this guy's battle tactics?
Apparently, when firing his autocannons,
he performs continuous aileron rolls.
Huh?
He does rolls?
That's pointless.
It's creepy.
Beginning today,
we will have the highest scorers on mandatory standby alert.
That is all.
Well, let's do what we can, I guess.
Did you hear? They said they couldn't get behind their asses even once!
There's no way anyone in the rebel forces could run circles around our pilots like that.
So the mystery pilot was an Etranger too?
What? Are you're saying they hired him?!
Come on, Rookie.
There's no way you survived the battlefield just to come back to a hell like this.
Do you know about the lizard?
I n Vietnam, one of my pilots had the same nose art.
But the one who chose the lizard and painted it for him was me.
His name was Patrick Reed, Lieutenant Junior Grade.
I was also the one who first made him fire on somebody.
Fire! Pull the trigger!
There's a person in there, Sir.
You idiot! Of course there is!
What the hell did you come here for?
But...
Fire! Patrick, fire!
It's your first confirmed kill, Rookie.
The rest of our enemies have all run away.
Let's hurry up and get home.
Patrick?
I... I didn't want to pull the trigger.
I can't go back...
Patrick, where are you from?
Oklahoma, Sir.
Then do it for Oklahoma.
Pulling the trigger isn't about shooting down enemies.
It's about you surviving to see another day.
To see another day...
Stay alive,
and get your feet back on the soil of your hometown, Patrick.
I understand, Lieutenant Simon.
We're heading back.
I put him through some hard schooling: booze, smoking, women...
But also how to survive.
Before I knew it, that snot-nosed rookie had gotten a look in his eye
that was even sharper than the lizard painted on his plane's nose.
But he was able to make it through that hell.
The day we parted was the same day the U.S. military realized
that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution wasn't going to bring it a victory.
You staying in the service, Rookie?
No, I'm going home, Sir.
You saved my life that day, Lieutenant, and I intend to live it out at home.
I see, you'll live for yourself, huh? Good, forget all about this war.
I won't forget you, Lieutenant.
Lieutenant, I can go home, can't l?
I can go back there, can't l, Sir?
I couldn't forget the smell of gunpowder.
When I hear the sirens for an enemy raid, my heart starts pounding with excitement.
Fear and tension become a joy that runs through my whole body.
The ear-splitting sound of jet engines is like a lullaby to me now.
But Shin, that guy...
Never mind, I've made you listen to some stupid story.
Just forget about it.
Is he the guy?
He's different from me.
By now, he's probably gotten himself a wife or something and is taking things easy.
His home isn't in the far reaches of the desert like this place.
It's in the green fields of Oklahoma.
If a former friend of yours appeared before you as an enemy,
would you be able to pull the trigger?
If it were an enemy I had to shoot,
there'd be no hesitation in my trigger finger.
Would you tell me something?
Who is the first person who made you pull the trigger?
The man who wants to see my dead face.
When you capture a friend's dead face in that viewfinder,
will you be able to click the shutter without hesitating?
We intercepted an exchange before they went into radio silence.
It was an Etranger call sign.
It seems that the lizard has made his appearance.
Send up Kazama and the others!
Mickey!
You know who he is, don't you? Yet you're still going to go?
I'm one of the Area's Etrangers.
The Area's Etrangers...
Tango-Scramble!
Wind two-one-niner at five knots.
Estimate ten minutes remaining before encountering hostiles.
Hostiles' speed is increasing.
Revised estimate: one minute until engagement.
Here they come!
He's on my tail!
They got Hans!
Damn!
All right!
Is that you, Rookie?
You shot my comrades...
Mickey! Behind you!
He's coming!
Why are you...
You should be in the cornfields of your hometown by now.
Mickey!
Why don't you fire? Mickey!
Rookie...
Lieutenant...
Have you forgotten about the battlefield?
Kitri!
I can fly! Kitri!
I can fly!
Lieutenant...
By now, you...
It's the Lieutenant's shouting voice.
Answer me, Rookie!
I fought a lot,
fought desperately to survive the way I have.
But Oklahoma is so far away.
I wanted to go back to those cornfields, so I pulled the trigger for all I was worth,
pulled it so many times.
But I can't go back.
I just get farther away.
I don't want to get any farther away than this.
I want to go home.
Go home and...
have corn...
with everybody.
I don't have to pull the trigger anymore to survive, do l?
I can end it now, right, Sir?
Thanks to you, I was able to survive and make it this far.
This time, I'm sure I can go back to my home,
to that rich land of Oklahoma.
Goodbye, Rookie.
I don't get it!
A lot of your comrades have been shot down!
Hey, Shin...
Let's try something extravagant for once,
a stroll through the sky.
Keep me company.
Kim, escort Kitri for us.
Let's go, Kitri.
Knew they'd do it!
Way to go!
Are they the only ones who survived?
They said Shin and Mickey will be late.
The shots I want to take are of his eyes wide open, striving to survive
even if it means his blood has to scorch on the burning sands!
Can you hear me, Kanzaki?!
If you do leave here,
don't come back!
I don't wanna have to point my guns at you.
No, I won't come back again... Never!
Once I'm away from this battlefield,
I want to go back to my family's home in Oklahoma and take over my father's farm.
What about you, Lieutenant?
Well...
Maybe I'll buy a cottage or something in Florida and just laze about year-round.
Lieutenant, please come for a visit sometime.
I'll welcome you with some of the corn I've been bragging about.
There are secrets that cannot be told to friends.
There are schemes that no one can be allowed to discover.
There are loves that cannot be allowed to come to light.
At that moment when emotions intersect,
flames shoot up and wings fracture in the roaring blaze.
This is Area 88,
the place where sorrowful men awaken to their destinies.
Truth of the Sands the place where sorrowful men awaken to their destinies.
Truth of the Sands
Burned out completely by the unforgiving sun
Alone with an empty night sky
Staring at the stars
And far away, faintly, a soft melody
Touches the past too strongly to remember here
Now turn to face away from warm memories
Battlefield dance
Let your eyes close instead
To play on the evanescent dream, ooh
Kindness will not ever be necessary here
I n the dark black night
Moonlight will shine through