The Great Game

by O. J. Lowe

  “We’re a bit outnumbered here, Wing One,” Wing Two said. “Might be tight.”

  “You out of practice Wing Two? We might be outnumbered but not entirely outgunned.” Wolfmeyer glanced down to his screen and then out of his cockpit. He could see them in the distance now, several specks approaching fast, growing larger by the minute. He could hear Box hailing them, giving them the warning to turn back.

  No answer. Still they didn’t retreat. Wolfmeyer sighed again. It looked infinitely likely this wasn’t going to be the simple trip he had imagined it might be a few minutes previous. The banter had faded completely in those few short seconds. “Okay, Wolf Squadron. This is going to be rough. We can do this though. Don’t hold back, pick your targets carefully and try to keep them off Box. We don’t want them getting too close to do whatever they intend to do.”

  “You worried, Wing One?” Wing Four asked. “Nothing’s getting through Box’s shields. I’d be more worried about us.”

  “You worried, Alex?” Wing Five inquired. “Now I’m terrified. Okay, somebody take the five on the left and I’ll go after the five on the right, someone meet us down the middle. Easy. Be home for lunch.”

  Once more Box hailed the oncoming aerofighters with the warning and once more they declined to comment. It took only a second for Wolfmeyer to activate his comms and join in. “Unidentified aircraft, this is commander of Unisco taskforce Wolf Squadron, advising you to detract from your current flight plan and find another route or you will be considered hostile.”

  No response, he drew a deep breath, his hands already moving to his weapons systems. “Final warning, unidentified aircraft…”

  “Commander!” Wing Three’s voice came through urgently. “I think it’s the Dark Wind.”

  This time curses broke up across the communication frequency, notably from Wings Five and Six. Wolfmeyer felt like joining them. The Dark Wind, the aerial fringe of the Vazaran Suns, notable for its crack pilots who didn’t care if they lived or died in the mission provided the payments kept coming. An interesting ideology, Wolfmeyer had to admit. He’d always preferred the idea of surviving through the mission. Still, that rumour went around about part of the profits for each mission the Suns were involved in being kept back for the families of those who’d been killed in action. Mercenaries with a heart, he’d believe it when he saw it.

  As the unidentified ships got in closer, he saw what Thwaite had said rang true, they were an eclectic mix of ships of all ages and design, all painted in the dark grey not quite black colour that the Suns favoured. As they moved in closer, he could swear he saw the logo on the side, a sunlit skull against a desert background.

  “Okay, Wolves. This is going to turn nasty. Permission to engage granted. See you all on the ground.” With that, he kicked his thrusters and his HAX shot off towards the oncoming crowd.

  Already the opposition were breaking as he approached, aware of the dangers of oncoming in a tight knit group. If they stayed that way, it’d have been an easy day for them. That many ships that close together, all his squadron might need do was let loose a barrage of missiles into the maelstrom and the combination of explosions and flying debris would have been decidedly deadly for them. Yet they weren’t falling for it. Instead he hit the button to ready his forward laser cannons, glad he’d checked them over before they’d taken off.

  “Pick your targets of convenience!” he barked. “Watch each other’s backs. Good hunting folks.” If command was listening in on this, how long would it take for them to scramble some backup for them? An accurate answer was impossible to predict but either way, it’d be way too long for them to get here. They’d have to do it all themselves. They’d faced worse situations.

  Deep breath, Wolfmeyer put all thoughts out of his mind and yanked his HAX into the field of engagement, an enemy ship passing across his crosshairs just for a moment, an old Pash Runner and he let loose a flurry of shots towards it, the rake smashing across the Pash’s shields but the hull held.

  He would have banked, kept on its tail but a Licus was already bursting towards him, lining him up in its sights and he jerked down, losing his line on the Pash but escaping with a few bruises to his shielding. Licus’ never did have the most potent of forward armaments, he was grateful for that. Seconds later the Licus exploded as Wing Three swept in, all weapons blazing with a series of direct hits that overcame its shields and armour in a matter of milliseconds.

  “Good shooting, Three,” he said before locking his HAX in on a Vazran Kesi that was already accelerating away from him.

  “One down!” Wing Three yelled. “Only another thirteen to go!”

  Wolfmeyer heard her, caught the sound of a hull ripping open and saw the spectacle of igniting fuel seconds later his starboard side, Wing Five letting out a whoop of glee at the result.

  “Make that twelve! One for the Navarro!”

  He needed to get in on this, couldn’t have his wings outscoring him here. The Kesi had decent speed, but so did he and he wasn’t letting it get away. It had to fight the winds up here, he had the power to force through them with belligerence, his HAX gaining every second, he’d be in a firing position in a moment…

  “One for Wing Four!” Nkolou didn’t sound as overjoyed as Navarro had over her kill, but he didn’t allow it to distract him as he lined up his sights on the Kesi and squeezed the controls, the scarlet fire spitting out his forward cannons and shredding straight through its meagre defences, Wolfmeyer yanked his stick back and brought it high above the explosion, punching the air with his free hand. Four down, ten to go and they were keeping strong.

  “Lowest scorer buys the drinks!” Wing Two said, Wolfmeyer could see him jinking his HAX through a crowd of grey enemy ships, all weapons at full blast, none really landing fatal hits but keeping them back far enough to avoid landing a fatal shot on him. Wings Six and Four converged on him in a matter of seconds, letting loose their own flurry of shots into the scattering ships to blast down two of them into slag.

  “Two for Four,” Wing Four said.

  “You tagged anyone yet, Wing Two?” Wing Six inquired, a note of sarcasm in his voice. Jiro, in response sounded just as sarcastic.

  “Just lining them up for my teammates. I’m claiming partial scores and assists for kills here.”

  “You can claim all you want,” Wing Five said. Wolfmeyer saw him out his port window swooping past to evade the azure lasers of a Bura Ithora. As the grey ship chased past him, Wolfmeyer sent his own fire crashing into the Bura and moments later it was a ball of useless flaming metal falling to the ocean far below. “Doesn’t mean you’re getting them!”

  “Head in the game, Wing Five,” Wolfmeyer warned. “Don’t lose track of…”

  A scream broke out across the comms, only for a moment and then silence as the sight of a great fireball emerging out of the space where a perfectly good HAX had been flying a moment earlier passed across the starboard side of his window and just for a moment, Wolfmeyer felt nothing but silence. An Ikari tore across his line of sight, he quickly readjusted to try and target it, but he couldn’t quite keep his mind on the job and his shots swept wide. Nor could he move his eyes away from his tactical readout where the tag designated Wing Three had vanished from the screen.

  Thwaite…

  If he lost focus now, he’d be joining her. He swept around after the Ikari, trying to close it down, just eager to ensure that the rest of them survived. Ellen Thwaite would not have died in vain, he would vow that here and now. The rest of them would raise a glass in her honour later, but they had to make sure that later came right now. The Ikari pilot was a skilled one, his craft was small and agile and it was all he could do to keep on the same vector as it, much less get a lock on it. Three times he fired randomly without a certain shot at it, the laser bursts never going close to landing a telling blow.

  His sensors buzzed angrily, the sound like a saw in the confined spaces of the cockpit and he jerked his attention back to his readout, an Elki lining up
behind him, a lock confirmed…

  “Wing One, that Elki’s just launched an incoming at you!” Wing Two yelled. “Watch out.”

  Wolfmeyer allowed a smile to play across his face as he punched his thrusters and shot away as if fired from a cannon, already knowing the missile was locked onto him, it’d keep coming and coming until one of them was destroyed. Always a slim chance to hurry that process, he nudged a button on his control panel and his rear rotary cannons dropped down to deploy, mini lasers designed to harry a pursuer. They weren’t of a strength to be able to punch through any half decent shield but it still took a brave pilot to keep following his course when fire was oncoming at him, no matter how deadly it may or may not be. Of course, hitting the missile would be a challenge. For a human maybe.

  The weapons contained an automated targeting system, he glanced down, saw they were locked onto the missile and let loose the blast of cannon fire towards the streak of exhaust chasing him. A flash, a hit but not a decisive one. Or maybe it was covered. Some missiles had been put onto the market recently to block such countermeasures. All it needed was a sheen of corrosium across the nose, the area most likely to be hit by any such shooting. Corrosium wasn’t even expensive, unfortunately. Although with it gaining in on him, he suddenly realised he wanted to keep on living in a world where unfortunately that was the case.

  He retracted his cannons and brought his attention back to the sky. Maybe he could evade it. Maybe wouldn’t be good enough. He’d have to. He spun into a tight bank right and still the missile followed him through the carnage that the battlefield had become, locked in on his HAX and still he ran, rising high up above the rest of the battlefield until he could see the other four HAX’s engaging with the shrinking remnants of the Dark Wind. They’d done well, could have done a lot better and it still wasn’t over yet. There was always the potential for it to get worse.

  Still it was coming after him as he rose up higher into the air, touching twenty thousand feet, still accelerating. He tried to remember if there was a certain altitude the missiles failed to function at. He doubted it, as his altimeter hit twenty-five thousand feet. Still it came, he yanked his control stick back, bringing the HAX back across itself to drive back down in the opposite direction it had come seconds before, sending it into a corkscrew spin, wide angled and hopefully as unpredictable as he guessed it might be.

  The Suns couldn’t have that advanced weaponry, missiles that could keep up with manoeuvres like this were rare and more importantly, expensive. Already he could see it was struggling to keep up with him, torn asunder all over the place by the twists and turns of his craft. Again, he spun it into a series of agile twists, zigzagging back and forth towards the battlefield, the Pash he’d started the battle against hovering a thousand feet below him and he grinned. Still the missile came, nine hundred feet, eight hundred, seven, six…

  He fired his forward cannons, took the Pash completely by surprise as the craft exploded below him in a great fireball of debris and smoke. Deep breath, he glanced down at his sensors one last time and plunged through it, his systems screaming with the effort as he felt the heat in his cockpit, felt a thousand bits of wreckage buffer the ship around him, followed by the explosion several seconds later, the result of his pursuing missile meeting a large remnant of debris, a remnant from the Pash’s fuselage and he punched the air.

  “Show off,” Wing Two said dryly. “There had to be an easier way to do that than you made it look.”

  In his cockpit, Wolfmeyer shrugged even though nobody would see the gesture. “Probably. But hey, someone’s got to remind you all what standard’s you’ve got to get to here. I consider it not just my duty, but my right.” Still thinking of Thwaite, the words felt hollow and meaningless but he couldn’t let it get him down. Not yet. That was what the post-mission drinks were for. Drowning sorrows in a way that was denied on the battlefield.

  He glanced down to his sensors, saw only a few of the Dark Wind ships left in the sky. They’d managed to whittle them down quite easily. Box One powered one ahead, unhindered and unharmed. He found himself wondering what the point of this had been. If it had been a random attack, then surely there were easier targets for the Suns to pick on. Was it a mistake? Or was there something else at work here.

  Either way, it wasn’t his job to try and work it out. Not while in the air anyway. There were people on the ground far more qualified to do that sort of thing than him, all he had to do was ensure that Box got to their destination now once the rest of the enemy ships were taken out of the field of play.

  That was when something else swept past his line of sight, something he had to look again to check he really had seen. Was that… Couldn’t be, surely…

  “Am I seeing this right?” Wing Four asked. “Because it looks like…”

  “Wing Four, there is a dragon entering the field of engagement,” Wolfmeyer said. “Until we have more of an idea what to expect, do not…”

  It wasn’t a regular dragon, rather a great serpent-like creature maybe twenty to thirty feet long with a thick chunky grey body, twin huge leathery scarlet wings and an angry pointed face complete with four horns raised out the peak of its skull, orange and gold spots mottling the grey scales. Its underbelly was a cream colour marked with dirt and a scarlet stuff that might have been blood. A quad of forelegs broke out of its upper body, spindly but still probably incredibly strong, each ending with a quintet of ugly-looking claws emerging from the tips of its hand-like paws.

  “That a vos lak?” Wing Six asked. “Not seen one of them before. Not in the wild anyway.”

  One HAX got in close, Wolfmeyer guessed it might be Jiro in Wing Two in for a closer look but with definite intent not to spook it, and the creature opened its jaws to reveal a mouth of angry looking teeth, each yellow and pointed like giant knives. Flames broke from its mouth, white hot and intensely bright in the morning sun and Wolfmeyer winced as he heard Jiro’s scream, the HAX moving to evade but just barely. He could see the burns on its hull, could hear Jiro swearing angrily as the vos lak came after him again. Wing Two shot off, but the dragon creature had a good few meters on him, the jaws snapping angrily after the rear tail of the HAX. Jiro’s rear cannons came down, determined to harass the creature but it ducked down beneath the first rake of fire, easily keeping pace with the much smaller ship.

  “Engage!” Wolfmeyer bellowed, already mindful that things could turn on the head of a pin here if the vos lak continued to attack the field at random with no regard for who it blasted. Except, it hadn’t gone after the Dark Wind ships yet. “Wing Six, you’re closest, try and keep in on Two to get that thing off his back. Wings Four and Five, try and deal with the remaining Suns. Keep them off us all.”

  The crackle of static that broke from Wing Six’s comms hinted that he might not have been impressed with his orders to go near a pissed off vos lak but he still went about it anyway. Wolfmeyer could appreciate that. And besides, he wasn’t about to tell somebody to do something he wasn’t about to do himself. He went after the creature, Wing Six already there, harassing it with laser cannon fire, Wing Two’s rear lasers still peppering the sky as well. Worse now, a few of the remaining Dark Wind ships had gotten past Nkolou and Navarro and were closing in on Box.

  “Wing One,” Wing Six called. “I think there’s someone riding that thing!” Wolfmeyer had to blink at that as he stared down at the long serpentine body of the dragon creature below him, tracing its outline up to around the head… Holy shit, McCaffrey was right. Someone, someone either very brave or very suicidal was sat up on the neck of the vos lak, clutching it behind the horns. It explained much. Such as the tight manoeuvres the creature had been performing under fire, it’d take lightning quick reactions but if it was a spirit, it acted as an extension of the caller’s being and as such could put them into practice just a little quicker than a pilot in a ship could.

  “Guys,” Jiro said slowly. He could see what Wolfmeyer could, the Dark Wind gunships closing in on Box. They proba
bly couldn’t do much against those shields but neither was it worth taking chances. “Go take those out. I’ll try and shake this thing on my own. I can do it. Like some great fucking snake lizard with wings is going to take me out.”

  He still sounded serious as he said it, but Wolfmeyer could imagine his grin. “I’ll see you all on the ground.”

  “Good hunting, Jiro,” Wolfmeyer said, momentarily ignoring comm protocol. “Go get it and we’ll let you off buying the drinks.”

  More reluctantly than he’d liked to admit, Wolfmeyer broke off his vector pursuing the vos lak and after the twin ships going towards Box. Behind him, Wing Six sent a couple more harrying shots at the vos lak, laughing and whooping as he did before he made to peel off after Wolfmeyer’s own ship. He didn’t see the tail coming up on him, his laughter cut off as the vos lak’s giant tail swept up through the air and sideswiped straight into the cockpit of his HAX, crushing it immediately. Wolfmeyer barely caught a strangled sound emerging across the communications, the last sounds of laughter being cut off and then the HAX started to fall uselessly out of control amidst the winds. By the time it hit the water far below, the tag designated as Wing Six on his screen had faded out.

  And then there were four…

  Again, he tried to put it out of his mind as he went for the two ships closing in on Box, exhaling sharply, bringing his weapons to bear. He wasn’t too worried about landing a shot on Box, the shields could take it, he let fly with a dozen blasts in the direction of the Santa May that was closest, the enemy pilot taking evasive motions almost immediately. He gritted his teeth together, focused on the other one, trying to get a missile lock. Do the same to them as they’d done to him earlier. A small beep, the sound confirmed and…

  He heard another scream, turned his head back and saw the vos lak raise its head back to roar in ear splitting triumph, Jiro’s HAX already losing altitude, almost its entire body aflame. Wolfmeyer knew then what was coming, it was only a matter of seconds until…