Chapter 15 - Ambush over Lentan

Open Space

Lentan, Unclaimed Space

Monday, 17 September 3488

            Tobias did a second check of his instruments, still seeing the six blips splayed out across the screen. Next, he turned around and made a visual confirmation, just in case every digital component of his starfighter had somehow gone faulty at the same time. They hadn’t.

            “I see two VX-24’s, two scraptraps, a Penthell, and a...” He trailed off, as he strained to understand the identification of the sixth ship. “I don’t believe it; that’s a Mark Sixty-four!” His scanners hadn’t deceived him; the last fighter – at the rough center of the formation, and thus presumably its leader – was none other than a Felxaran-made Mark LXIV, a rarity this far from its home empire. It’s two wings – distinctly vulture-like in their design to fit snugly around the avian species’ bodies – angled out and into an attack formation. Nearly fifteen-years old at that point, the model wasn’t quite the newest, yet still packed an unassuming bit of firepower despite its rather small size.

            Aves swore over the comms. “Are you trying to tell me that we have a Felxaran on our tail?” A hint of a whimper escaped into Tobias’ ear from Aves’ passenger. Desmon Ontellus was about to get more than he bargained for.

            Tobias squinted at the readout. “It looks like the cockpit has been modified for biped use,” He replied. Combined with the fact that the model was well out of date and thus unlikely to be in use by a species which only valued the newest and best, Tobias exhaled a sigh at the guess – and prayer – that it wasn’t a Felxaran in command. A modicum of tension lifted from his chest, but only a little; they still had a squadron of six fighters to contend with, and the appearance of the Mark LXIV changed things dramatically, Felxaran pilot or no.

            “Is this one of Vorknor’s tricks?” Aves asked, an even voice marked by adrenaline. “Is he trying to blast us into pieces for one of the many times you’ve ripped him off?”

            “We had a deal!” Squeaked Ontellus’ muffled voice. “He promised to protect me!”

            “I believe you ‘had a deal’ that he would keep any interlopers from finding you and yet here we are,” Aves replied, ruefully.

            Tobias turned a quick eye on their pursuers, closing fast. They didn’t sport the markings of the ships in Vorknor’s fleet, nor did they seem to fly with quite the same cohesion. “No,” he replied. “This is something else.” No sooner did he say that, then his comms indicator lit up, an incoming communication from the planet below. “Zealot-3 here.”

            “Napht!” Came the rather harried clip of Vorknor’s voice, throwing caution to the wind and skipping callsigns. “I take it you’ve caught sight of the six fighters closing in on your position?”

            “Kind of hard to miss,” Tobias replied. He first checked the indicator on his cockpit canopy, indicating the jump-out position, which was roughly ten-minutes out, well past the field of shattered moon debris. Next, he checked the distance of the incoming fighters: less than three minutes. “I take it they’re not here on your orders?”

            “No,” Vorknor replied, flatly. “As much as I’d love to blast you across this system, I promised Starlancer I’d play nice today.”

            “Touching,”

            “We have been unable to identify where this group is coming from,” Vorknor continued. “We’ve demanded that they identify themselves, but they’ve denied our requests!”

            “Great,” Aves voice cut in. “They’re giving us the silent treatment.” That, of course, meant that they had their orders, and weren’t interested in any sort of discussion.

            “Do you have any fighters you can spare?” Tobias asked Vorknor. “We could really use the help up here.” Even before hearing the pirate lord’s response, he knew the answer.

            “I…cannot get involved in this squabble.” Vorknor answered, a slight hesitation in his voice.” This is a private dispute between two of my guests.”

            “Of course,” Tobias said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice. “Why go out of your way to be a good Samaritan, right?”  

            As if offended, Vorknor conjured up a tone of authority. “This base serves as a neutral meeting for several hundred groups of clients; if I started getting involved in any little squabble…”

            “If you wanted to help, you’d help.” Aves interrupted him. Tobias checked his monitors again. A minute and a half until the six fighters were within attack range. “Don’t give us that pile of crap.”

            There was a pregnant pause on Vorknor’s side of the conversation. “I wish you good luck in your fight, and I have every expectation that you’ll…” Tobias cut the channel off before the pirate lord could finish.

            “Go fuck yourself, Callahan.”

            “Alright Three,” Aves said, once it was just the two of them. “How are we getting out of this one?” Tobias glanced at the formation of the fighters. The Mark LXIV had taken up the center position, with three fighters on one side, and two on the other.

            “They’re hoping we take off in opposite directions,” Tobias said. “They’re preparing for a split-and-scatter.” ‘Split-and-scatter’ was the unofficial name given to the rather standard starfighter evasion technique in which the pursued ships broke off from a common trajectory, heading out on separate vectors. The hope on the part of the pursued would to be to split up a larger force or confuse it long enough to gain an upper hand. From the formation the attackers had just assumed, they full anticipated this.

            “So we’re not going to do that?” Aves asked.

            “Hold on,” Tobias replied.

            “I don’t have much time to do that,” Aves reminded him, as the countdown passed the thirty-second mark. Tobias studied the control panels of his fighter. This was a stock VX-25, so as long as the Senate hadn’t updated any of the software, it should have come with all of the standard quirks he was intimately familiar with – both the good and the bad. Lucky for them, Tobias was an expert in how to use the bad to their advantage.  

            “Do you know how to perform an Arrow Slice?” He asked.

            “A year and a half spent in the same crew as you; of course I know how to perform an Arrow Slice.” Tobias could almost hear the grin in his wingman’s voice.

            Tobias nodded. “When the countdown hits zero, you bank to ten o’clock and I’ll bank to four. Wait for our friends to follow, then engage.”

            “Copy that, Three.”

            “What’s an Arrow Slice?” The muffled audio of Ontellus’ fear-filled voice asked.

            “It’s our best chance out of this mess,” Tobias answered. “Just hold onto your lunch.”

            “Hold onto my…” Ontellus said, not comprehending what he was saying.

            “You throw up in here, you’re getting ejected.” Aves warned.

The countdown passed the five-second mark, and Tobias prepared to throw his starfighter in the agreed-upon direction. “Our Lady of Victory,” He announced over the channel. “Pray for us.”

            As soon as the computer countdown hit zero, a lock-on alarm started blaring inside the cockpit and a rain of green, blue, and red laser fire started lighting up the space around them. Tobias ignored it, immediately throwing his fists down and to the right of the control conduit, the Arrowhead’s engines kicking into high gear as the ship dove in that very same direction, the spring green ball of Lentan reappeared in front of him as he angled towards it. He waited until he saw the expected three fighters also dip in his direction – one scraptrap, VX-24, and the Mark LXIV itself – before violently throwing his fists across the control conduit, slamming them against the upper-right side of the conduit. The Arrowhead suddenly jinked awkwardly out of its current ark, the engines whining as they tried but failed to account for this new direction. They sputtered once, then again, before stalling completely. The existing momentum and direction of spin was enough to catapult Tobias fighter well out of the way of his pursuers, and he gritted his teeth as his stomach turned violently, the inertial dampers struggling to keep up with the action. As expected, the fighters had not expected the action and failed to stop their own momentum in time, sending them cruising well out of range.

            Tobias silently counted to three. This stall was a bug in the way the VX-25 was designed, as the computer was unable to handle a sudden inversion in the directional input, thus causing the confused engines to do an automatic reboot in order to refresh the systems, a process that would take seven-and-a-half seconds. The bug was well-known in the Union Military, and once well documented, had become an effective tool of surprise. Tobias had deployed this maneuver on countless occasions during his days with Azure Squad, and even over a decade later, it still proved effective. His count hit seven, and at the seven-and-a-half mark the engines immediately flared back to life, Tobias wasting no time in angling his starfighter for the three enemies which were now directly in front of him, in his sights.

            He fired at the first ship which he gained a lock on, the slow scraptrap. The flash of the Arrowhead’s blue lasers made quick work of the shoddily constructed starfighter, shearing through whatever weak shields the ship carried and skewering the top leftmost engine. Almost immediately the fighter’s cockpit detached and was jettisoned away from the engine portion of the fighter, as the entire engine apparatus exploded into a ball of orange and red. The cockpit eventually came to rest somewhere outside of Tobias’ line of vision, its indicator on his heads-up display blinked from the red “active threat” position to the yellow “pacified” position, indicating that it was disabled and out of this fight.

            There was little time to focus on that, however, as he brought his targeting system back in line with his two other opponents. The Mark LXIV was the quickest to react, diving to its left as soon as Tobias had come in for his attack on the scraptrap. The VX-24 wasn’t nearly as lucky, however, and was unable to pull off a similar maneuver before Tobias’ heads-up reticule locked on its port side. Without so much as a moment of hesitation, he fired again, raining a hail of blue down on the fighter, the shimmering blue shield of the ship flaring to life at each hit. Eventually the VX-24 was able to break off from its current trajectory, but not before Tobias’ scanners estimate that a good 75% of his shielding had been evaporated.

            “One hostile down, one with shields down to 75, and one got away,” Tobias announced over the fighter’s channel. “What’s your status, Seven?” He could see from his indicators that Aves’ blue “friendly” blip was swerving back and forth with two red blips.

            “I dinged the other scraptrap pretty good, but damn. That thing drank up more fire than I expected.” Aves replied. Tobias looked across open space to where he saw Aves’ fighter hot on the tail of the second scraptrap, then down at his scanner. Unlike the one he had disabled, which came without consequential shields and cheap aftermarket Sirius-series engines which could hold up to little, Aves’ opponent had installed Nova II’s as his engine of choice. As blue fire from Aves’ Arrowhead rained down fire on the scraptrap, whatever shots didn’t get absorbed by the sputtering shield were taken by the engine’s plating.

            “Hold on,” Tobias announced. He broke off from his two opponents, angling his fighter towards the scraptrap from below. “I’ve seen this one before.” Even before his reticle lit up with a sure lock, he fired a barrage at the relatively thin coupling which connected the cockpit of the fighter to the engine apparatus. As he could have predicted, the shields weren’t as strong over this part of the fighter, nor was the plating on the coupling to the same standard as the engines. Almost immediately, the fighter split off into two, the cockpit sailing into deep space like the previous scraptrap had. Tobias flew triumphantly through the gap where the ship had been seconds before as another red blip became yellow.

            “Thanks for the assist, Three!” Aves called, also crossing through the ruins of the scraptrap. “Two-on-four is much better odds than two-on-six.”

            “Ah, but the scraptraps were the easy ones. The other four…” As if to punctuate the point, a hail of red laser fire rained down on his vector. It was the compact Centauri Penthell, ready to re-engage. Just behind it, the two VX-24s were coming back around to support it.

            “On it!” Aves’ fighter arced on an intercept with the Penthell at the same time that Tobias instinctively spun his starfighter out of the trajectory of the lasers. He was greeted with the sight of their final opponent – the Mark LXIV – blazing towards him from below. The smart pilot of this fighter had evidently predicted Tobias’ quick escape and set himself up to intercept. As green laser fire began raining down on his shield, he quickly turned his roll into a dive, the inertial dampers again struggling to keep the cockpit’s G-forces regulated. All the same, he felt some little bit of the maneuver in his stomach, as his head spun. The Mark LXIV, its own dampers more sophisticated than the Arrowhead, was quick to match the maneuver. He was behind Tobias now, as another hail of green came to his rear shields, Tobias watching the percentage start to dip below the ninety-percent mark.

            “So this is how you want to play it?” He muttered, keeping his focus on the Mark LXIV. “Fine.”

            “Say again, Three, I didn’t catch that,” Aves’ voice said.

            “Not you,” Tobias replied. “It’s this tricky little Sixty-Four.” He dipped suddenly, pulling back on his thrusters, and bringing himself behind the Sixty-Four. Predictably the pilot wasn’t content to let this arrangement stand as he made a move to break off, but not before Tobias was able to win several shots against the Felxaran-made fighter with his lasers. So, this dogfight was about to be a war of attrition. So be it. “I’m heading towards the asteroid field,” Tobias announced. “See if you can…”

            “…keep the other three busy while I try and shake our slippery friend here.”

            “Copy that, Three.” Aves gritted, trying to squeeze his already-tight fists. He just barely missed a flurry of blue laser fire as he yanked his Arrowhead upward and out of their range. The first of the VX-24’s flew so close to the underside of his fighter, that Aves could swear he received a slight jolt at that fighter’s own engines. Three opponents he was just barely staying away from, and Tobias thought it was a good idea to go play chicken inside an asteroid field with a Felxaran fighter? “If I’m being honest, it feels a bit suicidal for someone who considers that a sin.”

            “I’ll be fine,” Came the response. Aves had little time to process that, as a loud voice erupted in his ear.

            “Watch out!” Ontellus practically screamed. Aves yanked his starfighter back down as the Penthell suddenly appeared in front of him.

            “What did I tell you about speaking?” Aves demanded, as he fired on the passing opponent. Several more percentage points of the Penthell’s shield were sheared off.

            “I would really like to make it out of here alive,” Ontellus said, his voice quavering as Aves felt his seat shake. “Getting blasted to pieces by three ships isn’t exactly how I…” Seeing a prime opening to get behind the second – and most vulnerable – VX-24, Aves yanked the ship to the left. That time, Ontellus did scream. Aves fired as soon as he caught the VX-24 on lock, his first few hits striking the weakened shield. The ship tried to awkwardly jink down and to the right, but Aves’ persistent blasts finally broke through as they struck a weaker point. He recorded several hits against the VX-24’s hull, as one of his engines started smoking. As the engine slowly began to die, the VX-24 quickly began to spin out of control.

            “I know what I’m doing,” Aves assured his passenger.

            “On your right!” Ontellus cried, practically leaping in his seat. Aves saw the attack vector of the Penthell long before Ontellus had and was already on a trajectory out of the way.

            “Sit down and shut up!” Aves yelled.

            “Sounds like you’re having a good time out there,” Came Tobias’ quip.

            “And where the hell are you?” Aves snarled. He checked his scanners then the space outside and didn’t catch Tobias’ Arrowhead on either.

            “Asteroids,” Tobias’ voice came through with a digital sizzle to it, undoubtedly due to a barrage of laser fire cutting very close to him. “If I were you, I’d start making my way towards jump-out.”

            “Yeah, I know.” Aves bit out, sourly. Up until that point he had been so focused on the fight that he hadn’t been trying to make it to their jump-out point. The indicator on his canopy read that it would be a eight-and-a-half minute trip, that assuming a straight line.

            “They’re behind us!” Ontellus warned.

            “For the love of all that is…” Aves trailed off as a rain of blue and red struck his rear shield, quickly chewing into it. He flew upwards, breaking off their lock, then cutting back on the thrusters to send the Arrowhead behind the pursuers.  Assessing the damage to his shields, he saw they were now at forty-seven percent. “I’d really appreciate having my wingman here,” He growled over the comms. “You’d be a lot more help keeping me from getting blasted to dust, instead of flirting with that damn Sixty-Four!”

            “This guy’s good,” Tobias replied, suddenly without any hint of joviality. “If this guy was paired with his friends, we’d…” The rest of the message was an unintelligible buzz of static and digital whining, which nearly made Aves yank his helmet off and toss it across the cockpit.

            “Three, you okay?” He asked, tension beginning to form in his muscles.

            “…yeah,” Came the garbled response moments later. “He nearly hit me, probably singed part of my comms array.”

            “Singed it pretty good from what I hear,” Aves said from behind clenched teeth, as he began snaking his starfighter towards the shattered moon remnant. He happened to catch the brief sight of the round pirate station far off to the one side, a ring of Vorknor’s own fighters gathered around, silently watching the battle unfold. Not in preparation to join the fight and instead in case any of the combatants decided to turn on them, Aves guessed. “Damned reactor slugs are treating this like a cheap war holo-vid.” He muttered.

            Aves’ ship jostled suddenly, as something solid struck his starboard engine. Looking, he saw the Penthell break off from his tail, having just collided with it. Not an intentional hit by how quickly the pilot jerker his fighter away, Aves assumed he’d just gotten too close. “How about a little more of that?” He snarled, yanking his own fighter toward the Penthell, getting another jostle as the Arrowhead’s thin wing crushed the side of the other fighter’s plating. The Penthell sharply dipped to starboard. “See how you like that!” He yelled.

            “What are you doing?” Ontellus demanded. “I didn’t think fighters were designed for that!”

            “They aren’t,” Aves replied, yanking the starfighter in the same direction for another side-swipe. Predictably, Ontellus wailed. “But our hull is stronger than his and our wings are good for penetration; why not test out good Union ship design?”

            “This guy just doesn’t give up,” Tobias muttered, as he rolled his starfighter to port. That took him out of the trajectory of a collision with one large asteroid at the last possible second, a maneuver which he hoped would confuse the pilot of the Sixty-Four and send him careening into the obstacle. The feint may have worked with someone less-than-experienced, but the Felxaran ship easily avoided it. Tobias immediately rolled back to starboard, bringing his own ship back to its original vector, yet on the other side of the rock. His jump-out countdown was at four minutes and thirty seconds, the number ricocheting between four and six minutes as the dogfight through the asteroids had persisted.

            At that point, Tobias reached a crossroads: his hope had been to lose this opponent in the maze of scattered debris which had once been Lentan’s second moon, or at least keep the Sixty-Four distracted enough to allow Aves to gain enough space to reach the jump-out point. The problem lie in the fact that Aves still had yet to clear the asteroid field himself on account of his two pursuers, and even once he did get to the other side, there was still four minutes of open space to dodge attacks, while staying on the same vector. Tobias knew he needed to get out there to assist Aves, but that would only be possible after something had been done with this Mark LXIV.

            His console erupted at that moment with a series of fast warning beeps, indicating that the Sixty-Four had locked onto him. This warning wasn’t a laser lock, however, but that of a missile lock. “Damn it,” He spat out, jinking the Arrowhead in order to break the lock, to no avail. He had just entered a segment of the asteroid field that was particularly thick, and no escape vectors appeared to him at present.  

            “Come again, Three?” Aves voice was cut off at the end by a howl of terror from Ontellus in the background. “Shut up!” Came the next command. 

            “I got a missile lock on me,” Tobias answered, ignoring the second comment. “And nowhere to go.” He tried jinking again, but the lock was firmly honed onto the heat signature of his engines.

            Tobias’ eyes narrowed at that thought. Missiles were able to latch onto the heat signature of a ship, and even once launched used that to follow their targets. Without much space to maneuver, it would be impossible for him break the lock before the incoming warheads tore through his shields. But if he could cut off their lock…

            It wasn’t quite that simple, Tobias knew. Even if he killed his engines and allowed his ship to fall into the very narrow trough of open space beneath him, that would still leave his own natural body heat and the heat in the cockpit for a well-tuned missile to lock onto. Most missiles weren’t necessarily that sophisticated, but his opponent was a Mark LXIV. If it still carried its stock Felxaran-made missiles, they could very well account for that type of maneuver, which meant he needed to time his trick to within a hair’s length of impact. Three precious seconds had passed since the Sixty-Four had obtained the lock, and Tobias knew he didn’t have another three to try and come to a decision.

            “Lord have mercy if I time this wrong…” He muttered. Tobias pulled back energy from his laser batteries and transferred them to the engines, giving them even more power than they had previously, and gaining him several more kilometers of speed on the Sixty-Four. The incessant beeping suddenly skipped up several octaves and gained speed, the computer blaring a message that a missile was launched. Tobias calmly waited for the missiles to gain on him, waiting until the last possible second to make his move. When the computer estimated less than a second and a half until impact, he switched off his engines.

            All in a single instant, the hum of the Arrowhead’s engines vanished, as its forward momentum was transferred into a downward arc of freefall. As a large asteroid grew closer, Tobias watched the two missiles fly straight over his fighter, struggling yet failing to retrieve another lock. Tobias then turned his engines back on again, crossing himself as the engines spun through their startup routines, all the while impending collision with the asteroid drew nearer. Finally the engines reached full power, and Tobias’ control was restored. He pulled out of the dive and returned to a forward trajectory just as the Mark LXIV passed him, not yet able to account for the maneuver. Tobias wasted no time in bringing the weapons systems back to full power and unleashing a barrage of laser fire onto his opponent. Immediately the teal color of the Felxaran shields erupted into a strong wall of defense. Stalwart, but ultimately unable to correct the pilot’s next maneuver.

            In an effort to escape Tobias’ rear attack he rolled to starboard, yet with nowhere to go ended up clipping his wing against a massing of dust and debris. The shield took a brunt of that hit, but combined with Tobias’ own attack, could only hold its own for a few seconds longer before vanishing completely. Tobias’ next few blasts recorded an explosion at his opponent’s port-side wing, as the Sixty-Four vanished from sight, scanners indicating that the ship had suffered significant damage and was on an uncontrolled vector away from the fight. The blip went from red to yellow.

            “Seven, this is Three. The Mark LXIV is out of the fight for the time being, I’m coming back to you; try and keep on the vector for jump-out.”

            “That’s what I’ve been doing!” Aves yelled back at him, the words marred by both a beeping in his own ship, along with Ontellus’ unintelligible yelling. “Just get the hell over here!”

            Any illusions that Garrick Aves had that his night out to the club with Xanthe had been the worst assignment given to him were quickly being worn away. He could deal with the pirates; he could deal with the ambush by a superior fighter force; what he was quickly realizing he couldn’t deal with, was the color commentary from the passenger jammed into the back of this already-cramped starfighter. Even if they made it out of this alive, Aves was pretty sure he would kill Desmon Ontellus himself once they reached Novaterra.

            “Why we don’t just surrender to them?” Ontellus asked, his terrified voice shrill. “Surely we’d have a better chance of escape on the ground!”

            “One more word,” Aves grit out between clenched teeth. “And I will eject you into open space.” An action Aves wished was possible. If he did try it the entire cockpit would be ejected in a single piece, dooming himself into space with the man. Aves considered the torture of spending his last minutes alive listening to the man’s incessant whining and relented of the desire.

            The asteroid field disappeared around them, and with it the jump-out countdown passed the four-minute mark. As if anticipating that their window of attack was rapidly closing, Aves’ pursuer redoubled his attack. Aves had tried just about every trick he could think of, yet this Centauri Penthell was stubbornly glued to his rear section. Shields on the opponent were estimated to still be sitting at a comfortable 65%, while Aves’ own shields hovered at 21%. There was also a warning indicator on his display, complaining about something malfunctioning with the diagnostic computer. Which meant that the 21% estimation could be inaccurate, the real number much lower.

            “Watch out!” Ontellus’ warning came.

            “I see it!” Aves snapped, yanking the starfighter to port. A small freighter had just materialized to real space just in front of them, undoubtedly coming in on the same vector Aves was looking to leave on. The ship banked in the opposite direction as it suddenly realized it had jumped into the middle of a battle, and the Penthell sailed right over top of the freighter.

            “What’s the meaning of this?” Demanded a deep voice over the open channel. The freighter’s pilot, no doubt. Aves saw the freighter’s identification come in as the Harlequin, with a Talosian registration. Probably a cover.

            “Harlequin, I’d steer clear if I were you,” Aves responded. “This is a private matter.”

            “What about the rest of our convoy?” The deep voice asked. “Vorknor promised that this lane would remain clear!”

            Aves frowned. “Rest of your…” Before he could finish, several more ships began appearing directly in front of him. He swore, yanking on his controls to dodge the ships were suddenly popping into existence. Amidst all of that, the Penthell had found him again, and the laser fire resumed.

            “Jump point crowded?” Came Tobias question.

            “It’s a whole damn fleet!” Aves shouted, as his final count of the incoming ships reached ten. “And they’re blocking our exit!” The exact point marked out by the coordinates was less than a minute out now, but there was a freighter in their way.

            “Harlequin, would you mind getting your fleet the hell out of our way?” Aves demanded. With the comment he dipped out of the way of the Penthell’s fire, coming dangerously close to the bridge window of one fighter. Aves could have sword he was able to make out actual faces on the ship’s bridge.

            “Vorknor promised us this lane would be cleared!” The comms officer of the Harlequin insisted, as the freighters began to take evasive maneuvers.

            “I don’t give a damn!” Aves spat. Less than a minute to jump-out, now. The Penthell scored a few more shots, as the shield came down to thirteen percent, though once again Aves had reason to doubt the accuracy of that.

            “You’re going to hit that ship!” Ontellus screamed.

            Aves grit his teeth as he maneuvered around the ship he had already seen coming. Tobias’ fighter suddenly flashed back onto scanners, streaking right across Aves’ line of sight, making a quick dash for the jump-out point. “Do you need any help, Seven?” He asked.

            “Let’s see,” Aves replied, bitterly. “My shields are low, my ship is screaming at me, Ontellus won’t shut up, and I have a Penthell welded to my ass.” The next maneuver was dip below another ship. “And I’m trying not to plaster myself over the hull of these freighters!” Thirty seconds now, and the jump point was clear. He emerged from the sea of freighters just in time to see Tobias’ Arrowhead flying back in his direction, on a vector just above him. Aves was barely able to process before Tobias’ lasers began lighting up, striking the Penthell straight on the forward shield. It didn’t destroy the ship but did cast him from Aves’ tail.

            “Better?” Tobias asked.

            “Much,” Aves granted. “Initiating the jump now.”

            “Linking to your computer,” Tobias said, as Aves watched his wingman’s ship do an impossible turn, bringing him in a full 360 to Aves’ side. “Jump out in five, four, three…”

            “Did we do it? Are we free?” Ontellus asked. Aves ignored the comment, as a rain of the Penthell’s fire returned to shower down on them. It was too little too late, however, as the familiar rainbow glow began to appear at the front of their vision, stretching out the stars before the ship literally leapt forward, casting them into hyperspace.

            “That one was much too close for comfort,” Tobias commented, as their ships flew side-by-side into the dark expanse of hyperspace. Aves melted back into his seat as they left the Lentan system far behind, the adrenaline draining from him instantly, replaced with a deep lethargy.

            “I think that’s enough excitement for me for one lifetime,” Aves sigh, removing his flight helmet. “Wake me up when we arrive at the next system.”