With America in ashes and lawlessness threatening to rule land, air, and sea, one pilot stands poised to pull his nation back from the brink of all-out anarchy.

The Big War started in Western Europe with a Soviet nerve gas attack that laid waste to France, Germany, and Spain. The world's democracies fought back, and pilots like Hawk Hunter led the charge--tearing across the flaming wreckage of the continent at supersonic speeds. They pushed the Russians back and just when victory was in sight, a traitor at the highest level of government turned off America's missile defense system, and Soviet nukes rained from the sky.

Two years after the nuclear holocaust, Hunter gets a message to report to his old commander. America is in pieces: pirates rule the skies, and an airborne armada is plotting to attack Football City (formerly known as St. Louis). The armada is made up of criminals flying state-of-the-art jets, and even though the government can only offer Hunter his old F-16, he will do whatever it takes to reclaim his ravaged homeland.