As the others cheered behind her, Mac just smiled.
“How’s it feeling out there, Daredevil?” she asked.
“It’s indescribable, Mac!” he answered, his voice drenched in adrenaline. “I’ve never experienced anything like it. It’s absolutely unbelievable.”
“Looks like your boy knows what he’s doing after all,” Ryan said, turning to her with an impressed smirk.
“Looks like,” she smirked back.
Over the next several hours, each of them took turns in the Mako’s cockpit, first battling the same state of awkward, clumsiness that Lee had encountered before eventually settling into a decent rhythm at its controls. By the end of the day, everyone was up to speed well enough for a Mako of their own, and by the end of the week, they were already flying in formation.
As had been the case with the Threshers, Lee quickly established himself as the class of the field, usually taking point on most of their missions and outgunning the others by a solid two to one in simulated enemy kills. Meanwhile, Danny and Hamish held their own, while Link struggled to keep up. To no one’s surprise, however, Mac was the only one among them who ever came close to rivaling Lee’s instinct in the air, and all-around panache behind the stick.
By day six, ACMs were in full effect. This marked the return of many of the same one-on-one, squadron, and skirmish drills the group had encountered before; though this time with an all-new sense of realism, thanks in large part to the addition of automated drones—which were alarmingly good in a fight—and holographic weapons fire, which came in thick, heavy spreads from all directions.
During one particular instance, as Lee drew in tight on a fast-evading Danny ahead of him, Lee was suddenly forced to withdraw as a pair of green tracers shot past his canopy, just ahead of a hard-charging Mako that had apparently been waiting patiently for the right moment to strike.
“Direct hit, port side, aft,” chanted his fighter’s alert system, and Lee’s jaw tightened at the familiar cackle that followed it.
“You bushwhackin’ little sh—”
“Hey,” Mac cut him off. “Don’t hate… appreciate. Maybe next time you’ll watch your own six instead of fixating on someone else’s.”
“Wise words, Daredevil,” Ryan agreed from flight control. “You’d be smart to listen to the lady.”
Sitting back in his chair, the captain clasped his hands and watched in quiet amazement as the dancing spectacle of fighter lights and holographic fire continued across his scopes.
“Hey Doc?” he asked, turning to Reiser, who, as usual, scrambled to document everything he was seeing. “I know you had your projections for the kind of results you hoped to see at the end of this whole thing, so how do these guys stack up?”
Fidgeting with his glasses, the doctor gave a modest reply. “Honestly, I thought something like this might be possible, with the right people, anyway,” he admitted. “Having said that, I don’t know that we’d be seeing these kinds of results were we dealing with another group. I’ve watched these five for some time now, and from the beginning, I knew there was something special about them. True, a lot of that has to do with pure natural ability, which they obviously have, but it goes beyond that with these guys. They’ve known each other for so long that they practically know each other’s thoughts out there. That’s why they have so much success as a team, because they can go out, learn what they need to know as individuals, then come back and put it all together toward a singular, collective end.”
Seeing his point, Ryan looked to Noll in the corner, who offered a shrug.
****
At the conclusion of their next-to-last day of flight school, Mac watched from her cockpit as the Makos of Danny, Link, and Hamish disappeared back into the Praetorian’s flight deck.
“Northern Star, you are cleared for landing,” said an officer.
“Copy that, Flight,” she replied. “Northern Star is on approach.”
No sooner had she said this than Mac’s alert screen flashed hot red.
“Direct hit, port thruster,” the computer warned in its modulated tone.
“What the…”
Looking over her shoulder, Mac watched Lee’s Mako slice past hers in a blaze of white.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there something we were supposed to settle out here?” he chided. “You know, pilot to pilot?”
“Oh, hell no!” she growled, spying him swoop around for another pass. “That was a stone-cold cheap shot and you know it, Summerston!”
“Don’t hate, appreciate, right?”
“Okay, fine!” she muttered. “You want a spanking out here in front of all these nice people? Well, get ready to drop trou, Professor Boy, because you’re about to get one!”
Snapping the stick to the right and hammering down on the throttle, Mac ripped her Mako around to port in pursuit of her adversary, who exploded into the distance.
“Yeah, you’d better run,” she snarled, spinning up her fire controls and checking her scopes.
Back aboard the Praetorian, having heard the exchange on the comm, Danny, Link, and Hamish jumped from their fighters and sprinted across the flight deck toward the small stairwell leading up to flight control.
“I’ve got a hundy on Lee!” Danny blurted as he swung open the stairwell door.
“Oh I’ll so take that action,” Link shouted past him on the way through. “She’s gonna crucify him for that!”
Spying Mac’s lightning-fast approach on his radar, Lee readied himself for the coming conflict as his friends reached the control room just in time to hear a surprisingly interested Ryan give the order to put the comm out to speakers and the radar telemetry up on the main viewscreen. Seeing her now-furious charge almost upon him, Lee ripped the stick forward and hard right, sending the Mako into a tumbling, downward barrel roll, much in the same fashion that Layla had done with Link on their first day. Mac dipped evasively to pursue, and Lee leveled out and slammed down on the throttle, as their friends back on board the Praetorian looked on with heated excitement.
Slicing ahead at a 65% burn, Lee ripped the fighter right into a looped pitchback maneuver, but Mac was having none of it, battling instead for a weapons lock on his tail. Unable to do so with missiles, she flipped the switch atop her stick to go to guns on him, causing Lee to roll hard to starboard and straight into an inverted dive, resulting in a direct hit on her nose as he blazed past her.
Incensed at her inability to hang with him, not to mention his incessant teasing over the comm, Mac fell back to regroup as the others listened to their radio chatter aboard the carrier.
“She’s totally buggered,” Hamish chuckled.
“Oh she’s pissed, alright,” Danny agreed. “If Lee beats her though, we’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Yeah,” Link scoffed back, “because if she wins, she’ll never say a word.”
“Fair point,” Danny grinned, his eyes fixed on the ballet of speed and firepower on the screen in front of him.
Feeling the need to shake things up a bit, Lee set a course for Aura’s moon and knifed his Mako into the canyons below while Mac raced to follow. Having managed another hit on her port wing during their descent, dropping her armor beneath the 50% mark, Lee could sense he was getting to her, something that wasn’t usually easy to do. While Mac was not above talking smack, she was generally pretty cool under fire, so the fact that she wouldn’t shut up right now was a pretty clear indicator that he’d rattled her cage. As such, he knew full well that something was up when both the comm and his alert system went silent.
“Now, where did you run off to, Mac?” he murmured, searching his instruments for any sign of her as he exited the canyon into the clearing ahead.
Reeling to avoid a collision, Lee jerked the stick hard right and up when the opposing fighter exploded across the clearing toward him, its afterburners wide open on an intercept course from an adjacent tunnel and its weapons poised for an assault.
“Direct hit,” chirped
Lee’s alert system.
“Now it’s a party!” shouted Mac, as Link took a high-five from Hamish back on the flagship.
“Nice move,” Lee gasped, soaring his Mako away from the moon’s rocky surface and back into open space where he’d be free to work unimpeded. “Real nice.”
“Come out to the coast… we’ll get together, have a few laughs,” Mac sniped in her best John McClane, then falling into pursuit behind him.
Checking his instruments to rocket away from her, Lee took stock of his armor, which held strong at 76%, a good figure given the Diamondback missile he’d just taken to his starboard nacelle. On the other hand, that meant hers had to be dangerously low by now, particularly on her port side, where he’d intentionally focused the bulk of his attacks thus far.
“Alright, playtime’s over,” Lee thought, pretty much over her antics by this point and ready to finish it. Laying in a course back to the Praetorian, where he planned on making his last stand, he listened as she mocked him from behind.
“Oh, c’mon, hon! Don’t take your ball and go home!”
Mac was good, of that there was little doubt now. So beating her would require a little bit of piloting creativity on his part, and giving a final check of his thruster controls, Lee had just the move that would do it.
Disengaging his starboard engine so as to create the illusion that she’d dealt him a heavier blow than she actually had, Lee eased off the throttle and allowed her to close the gap between them.
“Why don’t you wait right there so I can come finish the job!” she barked, thundering away with her guns and completely oblivious to the fact that she’d just given away her ability to use missiles for the sake of seizing on an offensive position. Still, as his armor status continued to fall, Lee held the line and waited.
“Armor reserves at 69%,” the alert warned. “61%... 56%.”
“Turn and fight, already!” Mac yelled, looming behind him now as her guns went awash in pure green.
Still, Lee held.
“47%... 40%... 36%.”
“Dude, she’s crushing him,” Link said to Danny, sensing that something was up.
“Just wait for it,” Danny replied, already wise to Lee’s plan.
“31%... 28%... 21%”
Seeing his armor dip below 20%—her Mako all but on top of him—Lee pursed his lips and keyed the comm.
“Mac, you ready?”
An enraged snarl bristled back at him.
“That’s what I figured.”
Slamming the throttle forward for a sudden, bone-jarring burst of speed and yanking back hard on the stick, Lee ignited the small maneuvering thruster below his nose, sending his Mako into an explosive, end over end backward spin, leaving Mac to watch helplessly through her canopy as she blew right under him.
“OH C’MON!!!” Link roared in disgust.
Firing his stabilizing thrusters and reigniting both main engines, Lee fought the frenzied, fish-tailing machine long enough to level out onto an intercept course of his own. With his opponent now wildly on the defensive ahead of him—slicing and weaving to escape—Lee dialed up one of his Devastators, took aim, and squeezed.
“Direct Hit,” said the modulated voice. “Armor Reserves at 0%. Please return to base.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Mac droned, snatching her oxygen mask from her face and slamming it against the dash.
“And that, sweetheart, is how we do it in my yard.” Lee declared, rocketing his Mako past her canopy en route back to the flagship.
“Nice show, you two,” Ryan applauded through the comm. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like my birds back please.”
“Copy that, Captain,” Lee beamed. “Daredevil and Northern Star are on approach.”
Still disgusted with herself for having been lulled into such a compromising position, Mac billowed a sigh as Lee’s Mako disappeared into the hangar ahead. Losing to him at anything was bad enough, but the fact that she’d practically handed him the win with her lack of foresight was downright embarrassing.
This would suck for a while, she thought miserably.
Alas, it was what it was, and taking hold of the stick to follow him in, Mac swallowed what little pride she had left and began her approach toward the Praetorian’s flight deck, and the hardcore ribbing she knew awaited her there.
****
Stroking his thick, silvery beard beneath the red bridge lights of the Alystierian flagship Kamuir, Commandant Alec Masterson’s stormy gray eyes narrowed at the impressive display he’d just witnessed in the room’s main viewscreen. He’d heard whispers that the Aurans were developing some kind of revolutionary new fighter and for that purpose, he’d dispatched a reconnaissance probe to the Auran moon for observation. Still, he’d never suspected that they could be this far along in the process, and it angered him that such a crucial piece of intel could be so horribly outdated.
“Colonel Troy?” Masterson said, turning to his first officer with a tone that was both icy and calculated. “How is it that I’m familiar with every ship, freighter, and basic trash dispenser in the Auran fleet, and yet I find myself staring completely and utterly dumbfounded at what we just witnessed?”
Visibly intimidated by the ghostly pale commander down front, Troy loosened the collar of his gray uniform and frowned.
“I’m not exactly… sure, sir,” he stuttered. “According to our latest intelligence, there have been rumors that the Aurans were working on a new fighter, but—”
“Rumors. you say?” Masterson quipped—his hard, age-lined face registering mild irritation. “I’d dare say, Colonel, that our intelligence is a little behind the times if we’re operating under the premise of rumors, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes sir,” Troy fumbled. “Absolutely, sir.”
Returning his attention to the viewscreen, Masterson watched from his command chair as the mysterious pair of fighters vanished back into the Praetorian’s flight deck.
“What are you up to, Katahl?” he thought, trying to recall the last report he’d read on the matter. Then, rising from his seat, he straightened the jacket of his signature black uniform and stepped to the front of the room.
“If memory serves, Colonel, this fighter is allegedly capable of faster-than-light travel, is it not?”
“Yes sir,” the other responded. “Supposedly it was designed as a platform for the first-ever 100% Caldrasite powerplant. However,” he pointed out, “we have no way of knowing whether or not they actually achieved that or not since neither fighter ever made a hyperspace jump.”
Wondering if the XO was capable of delivering a more obvious question, the commandant turned a demeaning eye to his balding first officer.
FTL-capable or not, this was indeed an impressive fighter—faster, more agile, and infinitely better-armed than anything he’d seen before—and regardless of the size and specs of its powerplant, a closer look was most definitely warranted.
Poring over the options in his mind as to how best to procure one of these machines, it dawned on Masterson that this particular turn of events couldn’t have arrived at a more fortuitous time. For the last several weeks, he’d been working on a strategy that would, in theory, take his Auran foes completely off guard, though he’d lacked the proper tool for setting its dominoes in motion. Now, it seemed, fate had delivered him that tool.
“Tell me, Colonel Troy,” Masterson began, his steel eyes glinting. “Is our friend still onboard the Praetorian?”
Troy gulped. “Indeed, Commandant. I believe he is.”
Masterson’s smile darkened. It was all coming into focus now.
“Excellent,” he said coolly. “Scramble a message on a coded channel for him to contact us, and have Captain Hourne report to my briefing room at once. We have plans to discuss.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 24: Crossroads
Later on that night, Lee, Mac, Danny, Hamish, and Link strolled down the corridor outside of the lift to the Praetorian’s Officers’ Club, w
hich was located on the ship’s fifth level toward the bow. According to several of Lunley’s new friends in engineering, this was the primary watering hole where most officers and pilots came to blow off steam during long stints in deep space, and always up for some social atmosphere and a few cold ones, they thought they’d give it a shot.
Rounding the steel-paneled hallway toward the OC’s double-door entrance, Lee found it curious that in spite of having been aboard for nearly two and a half months now, this was their first trip to the local pub. Under normal circumstances back home, finding such a place would’ve been one of the first orders of business after arriving, regardless if they were there for business or pleasure. So the fact that they hadn’t done so until now was uncharacteristic, to say the least. Then again, their complete and utter lack of downtime throughout this whole process hadn’t helped.
Holding the door for the others, Lee stepped through the entrance and stared in approval of the all-too-familiar scene inside.
“Nice,” he mused to Mac beside him. “Don’t know about you, but I kinda like the place.”
Getting a frigid smirk in response, Lee guessed that her “cold shoulder mandate” from his Mako antics earlier was still in full effect.
In stark contrast to the dark, metallic feel of the ship’s otherwise cramped interior, the OC offered a refreshingly wide-open theme, featuring tall, 12-foot ceilings, an oak-top bar which encircled half the room, and an enormous tile dance floor, along with a sophisticated, yet casual cocktail-hour atmosphere that had everyone suddenly feeling right at home.
Hearing the sounds of muffled voices, clinking glasses, and a mellow shade of jazz over the house speaker system, Lee scanned his surroundings through the dim glow of the overhead lighting. To the right of the dance floor was a series of tall-top tables where a trio of officers sat huddled in the corner, deeply engrossed in conversation over frozen mugs of what looked like ale, while to his left, Lee spied two men hovering over a billiards table. Fancying himself as a modestly decent player back home, Lee considered trying his hand at a game later, though for the life of him, he couldn’t fathom what the craps grid on the table’s blue-felted surface was used for.
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