Eva awoke to the sounds of sirens in her ears. She sat bolt upright, dazed for a moment and not recognising where she was. As she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes she remembered that she was in the aft observation deck. Spinning around she caught the eyes of Aiden who had been woken up just as rudely by the noise.

 

With a faint smile she realised that she had been sleeping lying on the bench seat with her head in his lap. She didn’t have time to enjoy the recollection as Aiden was on his feet and dragging her by her hand out of the observation deck and into the halls of the carrier.

 

The two ran as fast as they could through the grid of halls through the bowels of the enormous ship. Activity was everywhere and thankfully no one seemed to pay them much attention. People were scurrying between stations with commanding officers barking orders, all focused at their own task at hand and blissfully unaware of the two dishevelled-looking pilots sprinting down the halls.

 

Aiden and Eva burst through the doorway of the 86th squadron briefing room, drawing the attention of everyone inside who stared at them for a moment before turning their attention back to Wulf who was glaring the two latecomers with a critical eye before he resumed speaking.

 

“As I was saying, our tracker scouts picked up a small group of ships shading the jump point as we came into range. These ships jumped through soon after. What makes us believe there is an imminent threat on the other side of that jump point is that the signatures we detected suggested that these ships were military spec.

 

The 93rd squadron are being prepped for launch as we speak. They will jump through with the fleet after launch. The 79th squadron will be on immediate standby to launch if there is an imminent threat on the other side. We will be backup for the 79th. Alpha, Delta and Gamma wings will be the first to launch. Alpha wing - your sensor suites are in the process of being swapped out for turrets. Beta wing, your bombers will remain on standby in case there are any larger targets that need taking down. Everyone get to your ships.”

 

As the pilots turned and began filing out Wulf called out one last thing, “Hawkins, Masters! Stay behind a moment.” Eva and Aiden both froze in place, exchanging a nervous look before turning back to face the Commander. When everyone else was out of the room Wulf approached them and said under his breath, “We’ll discuss your current situation after the debrief.” The Commander gave the two of them a knowing look and then moved quickly out of the room.

 

‘Imminent threat’ was an understatement. As the fleet came out of jump long range sensors picked up dozens of wings of unidentified craft, spread out in a wide arc to cover most of the possible exit vectors. The most immediate ships engaged to fleet aggressively as it came out of jump almost on top of them. Every other ship within sensor range had engaged full cruise speed in an intercept course. Within very little time, the 86th had been given orders to launch.

 

Delta wing left the front hangar of the carrier on full afterburners and Eva found herself thrown into the middle of a bedlam. Her sensors connected with the shared fleet array and lit up with countless contacts. Weapon fire zipped all around the fleet and stray missiles, having lost their intended targets, spiralled for a few moments before detonating in small pockets of brilliant light.

 

Snowy’s digitised voice spoke into Eva’s helmet, “Delta wing, stay close on my wings and attack targets as they are assigned to you. Trust Command and Control. They can see more than you can.”

 

“Yes Sir.” Dizzie and Eva both responded in unison and pushed their ships into a tight formation on their leader’s wing.

 

A woman’s voice spoke into Eva’s helmet that she did not recognise, “86th Delta, painting two Cutlass craft. Cleared to engage.” Almost immediately two contacts lit up brightly on Eva’s consoles and full sensor readouts were displayed.

 

“Alright Deltas,” Snowy’s voice was back, “spread out and intercept. Weapons hot, shoot to kill. Concentrate fire on the lead target first.”

 

Dizzie and Eva widened the formation to give all three Hornets a better firing arc. Following Snowy’s lead the wing turned to an intercept course with the marked targets. They closed from the underside as the two target craft executed a strafing run down the side of one of the fleet’s Idris frigates.

 

Eva locked onto the lead target and let her finger hover over her primary trigger. The target came into range and almost in unison all three Hornets of Delta wing opened fire sending over a dozen streams of ordinance at the craft. Its shields flared brightly from onslaught and failed, but the Hornets were too close and dipped down to fly past.

 

“Eva, now!” Dizzie’s voice said into her helmet. Eva gave a little smirk and flipped her flight system to orientation mode. Her rear thruster immediately cut out and she pulled hard on her flight stick, spinning her Hornet to keep her weapons trained on the shield-less Cutlass while her ship stayed on its original vector. She grimaced at the unfamiliar forces this put on her body but gritted her teeth for forced herself to keep her fighter focused on her target. Dizzie performed the exact same move and as the two sailed past the target they continued to rain fire onto it, riddling its armour with holes and causing one of the main thrusters to flare out.

 

Floating backwards now, Eva flipped up the launch guard under her thumb and pressed the button underneath. A missile zipped from under the belly of her ship, detonating against the hull of the lead Cutlass. The payload exploded brightly, crumpling the target ship. A few moments later a secondary explosion tore through the enemy craft as power plant detonated, turning the ship into scattering junk.

 

With a loud “Woop!” the two spun their ships back to face their original vector, flicked their flight system back to normal and accelerated to catch back up to Snowy. The second Cutlass had acquired them now and the top turret was firing after them, however the pilot had to dip hard to one side to avoid wreckage from their fallen leader, causing the turret fire to zip past them harmlessly. Snowy took the opportunity to lead the wing to the far side of the Idris, using the massive ship as a shield to regroup for their run against the second Cutlass.

 

“What the hell was that?” Snowy’s voice spoke into their helmets.

 

“Just a little something we’ve been working on in the simulator, Sir” Dizzie replied.

 

“Uh huh,” Snowy did not sound amused, “Let me in on it next time. The next one will be ready for us. Break cover from different angles. Whoever that turret targets, fly decoy. The other two go in for the kill.”

 

“Yes Sir!’

 

Dizzie and Eva split off from formation in different directions leaving Snowy to continue down the length of the Idris. The three craft emerged from the far side of the frigate and descended on their second target from all angles, the Command and Control feed keeping their systems locked onto their prey even while it was out of sight.

 

As Eva slipped passed the underside of the Idris the Cutlass came into view showing its vulnerable underside to her. Dizzie, who had gone past the topside of the Idris was coming in in from the top and was already drawing fire from the turret on top of the enemy craft, avoiding most of the blasts with her usual stomach-churching twists and rolls.

 

Eva pulled her trigger and unloaded a punishing stream of fire into the belly of the ship, its shields flaring brightly absorbing the shots. As she turned away to open up some distance for another run, fire zipped past her as Snowy came in from the rear of the ship, decimating the rest of the shields.

 

Shields gone, Dizzie performed an almost violent turn in her ship that would make most pilots black out. Ignoring the incoming turret fire that flared off her shields she trained all of her weapons onto the cockpit, punching holes against the unshielded hull and breeching it. The Cutlass lurched away from its course and began to spiral away with its flight deck in ruin.

 

“Good work Deltas.” Snow said to them, and Eva felt a swell of pride, “Reform on my wings and wait for our next target.”

 

Dizzie came about and moved back into formation with their leader and as one they started weaving through the battle.

 

“Sir…..” Eva said with confusion in her voice, “Two o’clock high, are those…. Auroras?”

 

Dizzie and Snowy both tapped at their consoles to bring up the stats of the small ships which had appeared in a thin wide formation of ten ships.

 

“Control, this is 86th Delta One,” Snowy said, “We have eyes on a number of small craft entering the battlefield, please confirm and advise.”

 

A few seconds later the Command and Control woman’s voice was back in all of their helmets, “Confirmed, 86th Delta One. Ten Aurora CL class ships with minimal armaments. We do not consider them a threat. Transmitting new targets.”

 

“Who the hell would bring clippers to a war?” Eva asked in bewilderment once the new targets were assigned and the wing turned to make an intercept course.

 

“Pay them no mind, Valkyrie. Focus on your designated targets.” Snowy replied.

 

Eva shook her head and turned her attention back to her targets, a wing of three Avenger craft that were giving a wing of the 79th squadron trouble. They closed to almost weapons range when warning sirens sounded and Eva’s sensors lit up with new contacts.

 

“86th Gamma, 86th Delta,” Command and Control sounded more frantic than normal, “Torpedos in flight, I repeat torpedos in flight. Break off and engage. Do not let them reach the carrier!”

 

“Deltas! Break and engage torpedos, now!” Snowy barked through the comms.

 

Eva pulled hard on her flight stick and swung her ship to the left as hard as she could tolerate, firing her afterburners and lining up for an intercept course for the nearest torpedo that Command and Control had marked. It was not moving fast, but it was small and difficult to hit.

 

Pulling into the wake of the torpedo she matched it for speed, keeping enough distance between her and it to be safe from the massive payload if it detonated. Using her helmet tracking she fired off a few short bursts, thankful that any small gun ordinance that missed her target was more of an irritation to the Bengal carrier shields than any real threat.

 

A few missed bursts were followed by a stream of fire that hit the torpedo’s propulsion dead-on, ripping through the flimsy structure and detonating the payload with a blinding flash. Eva felt the shockwave rush over her ship as she caught the outer edge of the explosion.

 

She glanced at her sensor readouts for another target but noticed that any torpedos within her range were blinking out as other fighters got to them. She was about to look for Snowy’s contact to re-join him when the entire left side of her vision was washed out in a brilliant flash.

 

Her flight suit visor automatically tinted to protect her eyes from the blinding light allowing her to glance over in time to see one of the Idris frigate buckling under the force of an explosion of unimaginable proportions on the far side of it.

 

NEXT ENTRY: Retreat