by Lee Stephen
“Oh my God!” Unlatching himself, Scott dove into the pilot’s seat—or at least as much as he was able—forcing himself into a position where he could awkwardly grab the controls.
Joystick moves, throttle goes!
That was all that Scott knew. Pulling the stick to the left, Scott’s stomach turned as the Pariah’s nose aimlessly rolled that direction. Behind him in the troop bay, the collective of operatives fell toward one side of the ship.
From the troop bay, a pained David yelled, “What the hell’s going on up there? Are you guys doing a barrel roll?”
“I need someone else in the cockpit right now!” Scott yelled. Get higher. They had to get higher! Vertical thrusters, vertical thrusters! Where are the vertical thrusters? He had no idea. Leaning over Travis’s body, Scott pulled the joystick back, sending the Pariah’s nose pitching skyward. Good enough! Punching the throttle, the Pariah was suddenly sent rocketing ahead. Once again, the occupants in the back shouted in unified surprise.
* * *
AS THE FOURTEENTH’S Vulture burst with forward thrust and took off into the distance, Lisa pulled her head back from the scope and watched it streak away. There was no question that her shot rang true—she could tell by the drunken way the transport was swaying. Queuing up Chiumbo on her comm, the sniper from Essex said, “I just took out their pilot. The Fourteenth are flying lame.”
* * *
THIS WAS NOT GOOD! Contorting his body to clumsily unlatch Travis from the pilot’s seat, Scott kept one eye on the sky and one on the joystick. With every second that passed, Scott found himself fighting to course correct in order to keep the ship going in a straight line—and each correction seemed a bit too much. All he knew was that they were going up at about a forty-five degree angle. Again, he screamed back into the troop bay, “I need someone up here—now, now, now!”
It was Becan who burst through the cockpit door. “Wha’ the hell is goin’—” When the Irishman saw Travis’s body, he gasped.
“Get him out of the seat, get him out the seat!” Scott said, shoving Travis’s body to the side as best he was able.
Snatching Travis by the armpits, Becan dragged him out, freeing up the pilot’s seat. For the first time, he was able to look ahead as Travis would’ve. The very first thing he saw—and felt—was the bullet hole. Wind was whistling through it at speeds the glass probably wasn’t designed for. I have to go slower or this glass is going to shatter. Gripping the throttle again, he said, “Hold on!” He pulled it back to the half-way point, as the forward thrust of the transport immediately dropped off—fast. Becan was flung into the clean part of the glass with Travis’s body, while Scott once again tried to level the ship off.
“Wha’ the bleedin’ hell happened?” asked Becan as he struggled back to a stand with the fallen pilot. “Is he dead?”
“Yes, he’s dead!” Scott pointed to the copilot’s seat. “Get his body in the back then sit in that vecking chair!”
Becan sounded outright panicked. “Oh, God!” Nearly falling back through the cockpit door, he released Travis’s body at the precipice of the troop bay entrance, where the ship’s forward momentum took over, sending the pilot’s corpse flying back into the masses.
“Holy veck!” said Jayden. “Is Travis dead?”
As soon as the Texan said it, Boris’s head spun in that direction. “Travis?” When he saw the pilot’s body, the technician inhaled sharply. “Travis!”
Scott shouted to Becan, “Shut the door and sit!”
Slamming the cockpit door shut, the Irishman did as he was told, practically falling into the copilot’s seat as he struggled to strap in. “Wha’ the hell happened?”
“Someone shot him! A sniper, someone. They shot him in the head!” They were wasting time on the already-known. “We gotta fly this ship!”
Becan started, then stared at him. “We?”
“Who the hell else is gonna fly it, Becan?”
“But I don’t know how to fly a bleedin’ Vulture!”
This felt like they were stalling. Were they stalling? What exactly was stalling? “I don’t either, but if we don’t figure out, this is gonna be a really short flight!”
Becan searched frantically across the control panel. “Wha’s what in here? Is there an autopilot?”
“I don’t know! I don’t even know if it works.” The Pariah had been stripped of virtually every internal component by General Thoor. Scott had no idea what the ship could or couldn’t do. “Look in the glove box. Grab the instructions!”
Looking in every direction, Becan asked, “Does this thing have a glove box?”
Scott spared a glance to Becan’s seat, where indeed there was no glove-compartment-equivalent to be seen. “A sleeve, a pocket, an anything where Travis might keep the instructions!”
“I don’t think Travis needed to read the bleedin’ instructions!”
“Veck! Find something. Figure something out!”
Reaching forward, Becan pressed one of the buttons on the console. Several indicator lights started to flash, and he jumped back.
“What the?” Scott looked between the sky and the console. “What did you do?”
The Irishman threw his hands up. “I don’t know what I did!”
This was insane. “You can’t just blindly hit buttons on a flying transport!”
“Yeh said to figure things ou’. That’s how I figure things ou’!”
This was going to end badly. Easing the joystick down, Scott angled the Pariah’s nose back toward the ground. He wasn’t sure if he was getting the hang of flying properly or getting used to flying improperly, but at least he felt a granule of control. “I’m going lower, I’m getting close to the ground.” He scanned the mountainous horizon. “We’ve gotta go north. That’s north, right?”
“Why the hell do yeh wanna fly close to the ground?”
“Because we won’t be detected! Right?”
A second of silence passed. “Are yeh askin’ me or tellin’ me?”
“I’m asking you. I’m telling you. I don’t know—that’s just what Travis said!” The ground was approaching quickly, and once again, Scott found himself pulling back on the throttle as he pulled the nose up. “I think we’re going too slow. How does stalling work? Do you know that?”
“I am literally cryin’ righ’ now.”
Tiffany! They needed to contact Tiffany. If there was one person who could get them through this—one person who could direct Scott on what he was supposed to do, even from afar—it was her. The Valley Girl just became their only hope. Grabbing the Pariah’s console comm—the one component on the transport he knew how to operate—he queued in the Superwolf pilot. “Feathers, come in, now!”
* * *
ROLLING WITH THE Superwolf’s nose low, Tiffany dropped into a steep slice, cutting off the last Vindicator mid-turn. As she guided her targeting reticle over the enemy fighter, Scott’s call came over her helmet speaker. The blonde pulled the trigger, and the Superwolf’s nose cannon sprayed the twin tail engines of the Vindicator. Its pilot ejected moments before the Vindicator exploded.
Snarling into the comm angrily, Tiffany said, “What part of ‘I can’t talk right now’ didn’t you understand?” Orange streaks flew past her cockpit, and the pilot looked back through the canopy. The two remaining Superwolves were on her tail, one playing wingman to the other.
“This is Scott. I’m flying the Pariah—Travis is dead!”
Tiffany’s hands tensed. Behind her visor, the brown-eyed blonde blinked. “Come again with that traffic?”
“Travis Navarro is dead! I am flying the Pariah. I do not know what to do!”
“Travis is dead?”
There was a burst of static. “Dead, dead, dead, as in dead! What in the hell do I do to fly this ship?”
A lump rose in Tiffany’s throat—even as the Superwolves behind her fired on, and even as she pitched and yawed the fighter in full-on guns defense mode. For a moment, her hands moved on pure autopilot. S
wallowing the lump, she snapped back into reality, pushing down on the stick to dive into a defensive spiral. As the ground became her new view, she held her breath.
“Tiffany! Are you there?”
Travis was the reason Tiffany was alive. If not for him—if not for that cursed transport—she would have been blown out of the sky after leaving the Great Dismal Swamp. Jaw setting as her stare narrowed into a deep, burning glare, Tiffany pulled out of her spiral early and slammed the throttle forward. “Fly north and stay low. I’ll be on my way soon.”
Behind Tiffany, the two remaining Superwolves descended to pursue her. Leading them to the Pariah wasn’t an option. The Fourteenth needed to survive, and having a pair of Superwolves in the area wasn’t going to help them. She had to take out these two first—preferably before reinforcements were sent from Hong Kong. There was no doubt that with as many casualties as EDEN had faced already at the hands of the blond pilot, they were going to up the ante hard.
Pulling back on the throttle and hitting the air brakes, Tiffany curled the Superwolf up and around on a hairpin turn so tight, she wasn’t entirely sure the aircraft would be able to pull it off. But it did. Dropping out of maximum thrust, her Superwolf cut the corner tighter than both of the fighters behind her. As they turned on a wider angle, she brought the Superwolf around like a corkscrew. The next thing the two enemy pilots knew, Tiffany was tucking in behind them in what was now a defensive vertical spiral. They were hers for the taking. Pulling the trigger on her joystick, the Superwolf’s cannons erupted with fury, catching the left wing of one of the fighters—the one that’d been serving as wingman. The wing was blown into pieces as the fighter spiraled toward the ground.
Guiding her reticle over, she repeated her attack on the last enemy flying, and just like that enemy’s wingman, she peppered her target’s wing until it began to explode into pieces. Its pilot bailed out as the Superwolf spun.
No time for celebration. Looping around sharply, Tiffany dropped in altitude until she was flying just over the desert’s surface. Pushing the throttle to the wall, she went supersonic toward Hami Station.
* * *
BORIS WAS A WRECK. The whole while the Pariah flew, the technician was screaming Travis’s name from his seat. On several occasions, he fought with his good arm to unstrap himself and run to the corpse of his friend, but on both occasions, Jayden was there to pin him back and keep him in place.
“Travis!” Boris yelled.
“There’s nothing you can do, man!” The Texan grabbed Boris again from his own seat, slamming the technician back into his and fighting to hold him there. “If you start movin’ around, you’re gonna get killed, too!”
In the sealed-off cockpit, Scott and Becan were still trying to figure out how to fly. Low altitude was proving a challenge simply because objects on the ground—and mountain ranges—needed to be avoided. Nothing they were looking at looked familiar. If this was the same topography they’d flown over to get to Hami Station, it certainly didn’t look like it.
The Irishman was frantically trying to identify the various buttons and switches on the console, most of which had either partially or entirely peeled labels. There was no way that someone without intimate knowledge of Vulture controls would be able to figure things out. “Okay, I think this section is for troop bay lights!” When he pointed at the indicated section, Scott flinched to knock his hand away.
“Don’t touch it!”
Becan threw his hands up in defense. “I was just pointin’ it ou’ to yeh!”
“If nothing comes after us, I think I might have this,” said Scott. He was moderately low, or at least what he considered low, and he had decent control over the throttle and joystick. The problem was speed. Though the Pariah had been slowed in general by its nonfunctioning landing gear, Scott was outright terrified to even match that with the hole in the glass. Though unaffected by the wind for the most part in his fulcrum armor, it was still vibrating and whistling like it was on the verge of coming to pieces. What would happen if the crack expanded? Would the entire canopy break apart? Would he and Becan be sucked out? Would they be completely unable to control anything at all? These were all things he needed to know desperately.
“But wha’ if somethin’ does come after us?” Becan asked.
Scott just shook his head. “Then, to be perfectly honest, we probably die.”
The comm channel cracked. Tiffany’s voice emerged. “I’m coming in fast! What’s your location?”
Looking down out of the side of the window, Scott answered, “We’re over a bunch of trees.”
“I don’t think tha’s goin’ to be helpful,” said Becan.
By the sound of Tiffany’s voice, it wasn’t. “Trees? I need coordinates, vectors!”
“Don’t worry about Vector! Vector is behind us.”
“No, not the—ugh! Look at your compass, give me a heading.”
At least that was easy to find. “Okay, we’re heading, uhh…like, straight north.” He looked at Becan. “That’s a direction, right? Straight north?”
“Yes, north is a direction.”
“I mean to a pilot!”
Tiffany answered, “Okay, I’m going to try and avoid China.”
That sounded like a good plan.
“What I’m gonna need you to do is relay your actual coordinates to me. I can’t track you because you don’t have a transponder.”
Snapping his fingers to catch Becan’s attention, Scott pointed at the console. “Find our coordinates.”
Becan stared at the console. “Uhh.”
“How hard is it gonna be to land this thing?” Scott asked Tiffany.
There was an unsettling pause before Tiffany answered. “On the ground, I could probably talk you through it. But, like…” Scott already knew where she was heading. “Okay, being totally honest, you’re not gonna be able to park that thing in Northern Forge by yourself, even with me telling you what to do. It’s actually kinda tricky.”
Scott figured as much.
“Okay, once I find you, I’ll follow you somewhere where you can land on the open ground. I’ll park next to you, then come aboard and fly the Pariah myself.”
“What about the Superwolf?”
Tiffany answered, “The Superwolf has autopilot. It has the route to Northern Forge already programmed—it’ll land by itself.”
“God, do we ever need autopilot back in here,” said Becan.
The blonde continued. “Wait till I find you, then we’ll find a landing spot together. Vertical thrusters can be kinda tricky, too.”
So much about this thing was “kinda tricky.” Scott was realizing just how much more Travis knew than what they’d given him credit for. “We’ll do whatever you say.”
Silence came over the line, though the sound of the open channel could still be heard. At long last, Tiffany said in a voice as heartfelt as it was solemn, “I’m gonna get you guys home.”
Even with the distance between them, and even in the midst of the chaos, her words carried warmth into the cockpit. They were what Scott and Becan, both wholly outmatched behind the joystick of a Vulture, needed to hear. The Pariah had saved Tiffany’s life. Saving it and its crew in return would mean something. I’m so glad she’s with us.
“Hey Remmy, look!” Pointing at the radar display, the Irishman’s tone raised almost jovially.
Scott followed Becan’s gaze to the display, where a dot appeared at the very bottom. Tilting his head, he gazed at it curiously. There was no doubt about it—it was another aircraft.
“We see yeh, Feathers!” Becan said through the comm.
Something churned in the pit of Scott’s stomach. There was no way Tiffany had made it back to them that quickly. They’d only been on the channel with her for a few minutes. “I don’t think that’s her,” he said ominously. “Hey Tiff, are you coming up behind us right now?”
“Huh? No, I’m like, nowhere near you guys, yet.”
Oh no. Scott’s heart rate increased. �
��That’s another ship.”
“Yeh gotta be kiddin’ me…”
“That’s another vecking ship.”
Tiffany’s voice crackled through again. This time, the Valley Girl’s volume high with urgency. “Did you say you guys saw another ship?”
“Yes!”
“What’s the identification on it?”
Peering at the new dot, Scott read the number atop it. “VM2733.”
“That’s a Mark-2 Vulture,” Tiffany said. “They musta called in reinforcements!”
“That’s great—now what do we do?” There was no immediate answer from Tiffany. This was bad.
At long last, the pilot responded. “Are they coming straight for you or just in your general direction?”
Next to Scott, Becan shook his head. “Tha’ looks like a dead line straight to us, if yeh ask me.”
Scott was forced to agree. “I think they see us.” They’d crossed a mountain at one point. Had they gone too high and been detected?
“Okay,” said Tiffany, “I need you to listen and do exactly what I say.” Scott had no problem with that. “Strap in completely. I mean, like, the full harness, not just the safety straps.”
Reaching up to pull down his harness, Scott slid it down atop his body. Though he’d never seen Travis actually use it, he was aware that it was there. Thankfully, it slid right into place.
Tiffany rattled on. “You’re gonna have to increase your velocity to stay ahead of the V2! Has the bullet hole in the wind screen shown any signs of cracking at all since you started flying?”
“It looks like maybe a little bit, yes!”
“Okay.” A dreadful pause followed. “You’re probably going to lose the canopy.”
Behind his faceplate, Scott blinked. Did he hear that right? Turning his head to look at Becan, he saw that the Irishman was already staring at him. He could only imagine the look on his counterpart’s face behind the mask. “Did we just hear you say we were going to lose the—”