Devon's Blade (16 page)

He finally pulled up and did a sharp right turn, skidding tighter than we could. The maneuver put Karvuk further outside of him than Hank and I and he immediately turned inside her and started riddling her fighter with his cannons. The cloud thinned out and I could see parts of her fighter flying off in glowing bits and pieces.
Not good.

It took me a while to jostle my own fighter into a position behind the Ace. I glanced back at some point and didn’t see Hank behind me. His plane was still on my scanner just off my port side, so I figured he was still back there.

“Get him off me Dammit!” Karvuk spat into the comm.

As if anyone owed her a damn thing after what she had pulled. I felt like letting the Ace chew her to pieces and taking Hank back to base so at least someone survived this battle. But I wasn’t that cold-hearted. Besides, I wanted a shot at that bastard now and there was nothing that was going to stop me.

I blasted away at him again long enough to get him off Karvuk’s tail. We were under the ceiling now and I could clearly see my target.

“Okay you red son-of-a-bitch, this is my lucky day. I’m going in with guns.” I said to myself.

I opened fire when he was dead center in my firing reticule. His fighter started shedding bits of glowing metal as my rounds impacted across the back side of his wings. Nothing beats seeing a Vot fighter tear apart from a good ass chewing.

But like all good things in life, it never lasts. Then the Ace pulled a slide move that I’d never seen before and slipped away trailing glowing bits of metal. I struggled to keep him on my three-nine line like some kind of basic flight cadet.

A flash of light from my left side was not lightning but the guns of my wingman, ‘ol Hank. He squeezed out several shots all of which missed except for the last one which obliterated the Ace’s left outer gun.

“Holy shit Hank, you got a piece of him,” I exclaimed over the comm.

All I heard in return was giddy laughter, which made me laugh.

We continued our pursuit but we just couldn’t seem to acquire him again. Lucky for us Karvuk slid down from above and lowered her heavies on the Ace. He couldn’t go left or right, she had the high ground, so he dove for the drink. I rolled over and followed them down. I was pretty sure Hank was back there somewhere.

Gravity caused my head to spin as the waves went from a fuzzy blue blur to distinct white caps. We were too low. Way too fraking low.

But the Ace pulled out of his dive like he was flying for a circus act. His Fiver held together and the next thing we knew he had blown past Karvuk and was opening up on us. White plumes of death flashed at me and my ride buckled like it was going to come apart. Because it was.

Both hands on my yoke, I forced the old bitch over while shooting back defensively. A red streak blew past under me as I pulled up and prayed for power. The huge engine whined and thundered from behind as it rocketed up on yellow flames.

A warning alarm sounded over the engine and red indicators lit up across the board. I throttled back and tried to edge her over to continue the trajectory while I assessed my ride’s condition.

“Rocket One, Hank. Your wing’s looking pretty bad.”

I glanced back and saw nothing but jagged metal and missing panels.
Shit
. I looked back over my left shoulder and saw the same level of damage.

“Get on Karvuk’s wing, Hank. I’m not going to be able to catch up.”

“Copy that.”

I caught his Swift sailing away into the storm clouds and brought my attention back to my panel. It was SNAFU also known as Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

“Rocket One, Karvuk. He’s coming for you. Break right if you can on my mark,” Karvuk calmly said over the comm.

I was a sitting duck. I could turn right, but I had no lateral stability. I double clicked my mic and did my best to brace against the inevitable death from behind.

My six scanner was dead, I had no idea where they were, so I lazily juked side to side just to make it a little more difficult for him.

“Closing, fast. Hold on,”

Another super bolt of lightning cracked around me and seconds later the boom was punctuated by hits on my rear shields which quickly broke through and started pounding into metal.

Something blew under my legs and then behind my head. Acrid smoke filled my cockpit. Burning plastic metal and flesh. Flesh?
My leg was freaking on fire!

I patted the flames as the fighter rumbled from the beating she was taking from behind. You can talk all you want about how heavy and slow the Swift is but she sure can take some punishment.

“Break right. Break right!”

I pulled over and realized quickly that she was not responding. My rudder was probably missing. Hell, my whole damn fin was probably shot off. I stood on the rudder pedals with my bad leg and felt the pain shooting through me like a laser.

The Swift didn’t budge.

In that brief moment of time I truly thought I was finished. Thunder rumbled in my ears and more lightning flashed outside my cockpit, or was it exploding rounds? It really didn’t matter which it was, either way I was dead.

A dark shadow passed over the top of me. It was the Ace’s Fiver. He was more shot up than I was. Jagged pieces of metal fell away as he overshot my Swift. Why hadn’t he finished me off?

Seconds after his ship passed Karvuk’s Swift zipped by with her burners glowing yellow. She was locked in on him and she was not going to let him go. My cockpit was filling with smoke again. I was losing altitude and I apparently couldn’t turn right. I jerked the yoke to the left and the Swift responded sluggishly.
Okay, I’ll go left then.

As I fought to get my damaged fighter to respond to my wishes I realized that I hadn’t heard from Hank in a while.

“Hank, where the hell are you?” I said over the comm.

My theater scanners were dark, probably gone when my tail was chewed up. The scanning sensors were all along the top of the tail fin and extended out behind it.

“He’s going for the kill, Commander,” said Karvuk.

Going for the kill?
I peered out my canopy, wing tip to wing tip, looking for the action. All I saw was dark gray clouds and lightning.

“Don’t let up on him Hank, give him all you got!”

I found it hard to believe that Hank was going to get the Ace. Not that he wasn’t capable enough, just not experienced enough.

“Don’t! Dammit Hank, he’s getting away,” Karvuk yelled into her mic.

I could hear explosions over an open mic.

“Karvuk, I’ve lost him in the clouds,” Hank’s excited voice said.

“I can’t see him on my scanners. Do you have him?”

Hank didn’t respond. I frantically looked around the sky as my Swift popped down under the base cloud layer. A driving rain pounded against my windscreen making it all but impossible to see a damn thing.

“I think he’s gotten behind me,” Hank said and then his signal was cut short, followed by static discharges caused by the storm.

“I see him, he’s on your six. Repeat, one bandit on your tail,” Karvuk’s voice trailed off as if it were too late for the younger pilot.

“Don’t let him die, Karvuk!” I called out on the comm.

Above me the clouds lit up with an expanding ball of flame and fire. I watched it brighten and then fade away quickly. Scratch another victim of the Red Ace. I pounded the dash above my instruments and cursed the universe. Maybe he got out. Just maybe he bailed before the explosion.

“I don’t see a chute, do you?” I asked.

“He didn’t make it out. His fuel tank blew,” her voice trailed off into static.

I was still struggling to keep my bird flying straight and level under the black bottom of the storm. A torn red shape fell out of the clouds ahead of me, trailing smoke and spraying sparks. It was the Ace.

“Katya, I see him. The Ace is right ahead of me, heading two, four, zero. My guns are empty and my canon’s jammed.”

“Hang on, I’m right above you.”

He didn’t look like he was interested in fighting or even aware of my existence. If she could overtake me she’d get him for sure.

“I have a few rounds left, been saving them,” she said. Her voice sounded pained. I wondered if she were wounded.

Her Swift fell out of the clouds a few meters off my bow and I watched her line up and then take her shot. The Ace’s fuselage exploded and the right wing tore off. Debris fell back at me and I did what I could to avoid it. The body of the Fiver rolled over on the remaining wing and dove for the deep water below.

I visually followed it down to confirm the kill and verify that nobody fell out. Votainion pilots never ejected, but they had been known to bail out if the occasion warranted it. This particular pilot had already survived one crash landing in an old KiV-3 and later wound up stealing a Swift from our own base. He did not survive this crash. The Fiver impacted the waves at terminal velocity and exploded in a million pieces.

Katya had gotten her man.

Her broken Swift came down over my left wing and I could see that her nose was all shot up. A gaping hole was torn from the radome to just past the cockpit.

“You okay, Katya?” I asked.

“I’m pretty banged up, but I’ll make it. You?”

“Same.”

We flew together in silence as the storm clouds parted and gave way to blue skies. We were flying due south, out of the weather and back to our island home.

Katya’s comm was working and she contacted Control to inform them of our imminent return. She was told that rescue crews were on standby. I looked around my own cockpit and figured Chief Hawkins would have his hands full trying to get our birds airborne again.

“Commander.”

I looked over my shoulder at her Swift. “Yes.”

“My gun cameras are damaged. I don’t think I got any images of that last kill.”

“Me neither. I watched him auger in though, he’s confirmed.”

She double clicked her mic.

* * *

We didn’t speak again until the base was in sight. Both of us managed to set down on the flightline without further damage. I let the medical guys pull me out of my cockpit and lower me down to the ground, but I wanted to walk away from this flight on my own two legs. They lowered Katya down onto a floating gurney. Her right leg was bleeding and she had lacerations and burns on her arms and face. I’m pretty sure I looked like hell, but she looked worse.

The base Commander was there to welcome us home, he was damn glad to see us and immediately asked where the other pilots were.

“They didn’t make it, sir.”

His face wrinkled in disgust and shock.

“But we got the Red Ace.”

I was about to credit Katya with her kill when she cut me off.

“Lieutenant Hank Henry shot him down, sir. I saw it with my own eyes.”

I looked down at her and in that instant wanted to shake her hand and give her a hug. Instead I nodded in agreement.

“That’s right. I saw the Ace auger into the drink. Bravest piece of flying we’ve ever seen.”

Commander Brinkman looked as astonished as the other pilots that were gathered around our planes and us. He looked back at Katya and then to me.

“Really? Was that his first kill?”

I nodded. “Hell of way to go out.”

Katya and I traded a knowing smile as the medics pushed her away and loaded her into a waiting ambulance.

“What happened to Hank after he got the Ace?”

I lowered my eyes out of respect for the dead and to buy some time to quickly make something up.

“When he ran out of ammo he rammed the Vot bastard. Cut both their wings off and Hank was trapped inside his Swift.”

Brinkman was horrified and finally impressed.

“Sounds like he took after his Squadron Commander.”

I looked up and nodded. I hadn’t realized Brinkman knew who I was, but I appreciated the compliment. The medics pulled me away and stuck me in the back of the ambulance with Katya.

She had an oxygen mask over her face and all I could see was her dark eyes looking up at me. I nodded silently at her and winced in pain as one of the medics tried to move my arm so he could immobilize it. Katya squeezed my hand and closed her eyes as they worked on her burns.

By the time I got back to duty, Commander Brinkman had put both Katya and myself up for Meritorious Service medals. He also awarded Hank the Silver Cross for getting the Red Ace and promoted him posthumously. The other pilots got Meritorious Service medals and promotions posthumously too. I was impressed with his generosity, considering over half of my squadron was dead.

I was only in hospital for a few days but it was long enough for me to think through what I was going to do about Katya’s disregarding my orders. I waited until she was back on duty to confront her about it.

I told her I was going to start training her to be a senior officer. She’d be spending less time in the cockpit and more time in my office, pushing data. Her eyes lowered and she took that news easy enough. Then I lowered the boom.

Forfeiture of half her pay for the maximum of two months for disobeying a direct order. Restriction to her quarters for a full thirty days in which she was to compose and send letters of condolences to the relatives of all the pilots who died. After that she was to review all data from the mission and write a proposal for how to improve the attack plan so that newly arriving pilots could learn from her mistakes. I figured that would be enough of a punishment for her.

I endorsed everyone’s awards and got about to training a new batch of FNG’s that had just arrived. We were still getting experienced pilots from other units so bringing them up to speed was quick and painless. Replacement starfighters were also on order. Fleet had finally answered my request, after it was a moot point. We had figured out our own damn tactics and as it turned out, they were the same things the geniuses at Fleet had come up with.
Figures
.

They were sending me some newer model Swifts, though. Not the typical worn out models we had been getting. The Block 50 Swifts had a more powerful engine and beefed up armor plating. I guess the engineers figured the added protection would justify the bigger pusher.
Geniuses
. I had Chief Hawkins rip out the armor and we kept the speed increases. Pilots need speed more than armor. Speed and altitude wins the dogfight.