3rd Strike

Searchlights still swept the sky, tracing their yellow beams across the underside of the dark clouds above. Ripples of lightning shot through the night, each time illuminating the city below floundering in the rains. Colonel Dorian held a pair of binoculars to his face, watching for his enemy's reappearance.

"Still no sign of the contact?" a nearby captain asked. "Our scanners lost the bogie three minutes ago- maybe the LESAMs got him." The laser-guided surface-to-air missiles had been one of the first weapons the Colonel had deployed in this engagement. Soon after, the "Joint Strike" flak and anti-aircraft tanks had begun rolling through downtown Perriglasse. Fortunately, the city had been evacuated hours ago. The towers of steel, ferrocrete, and polished glass were barren.

"No such luck, Captain. Keep your flak and AA units on those clouds- he's still up there somewhere. That fighter could dodge any ten missiles, and we only have half that many launchers. No," he sighed, gazing through the nightvision-enhanced binoculars, "we're not so lucky."

"Affirmative, Sir," the captain agreed, saluting. The deep whine of heavy servos filled the air as a nearby flak cannon's barrels lifted skyward.

A tiny flicker of movement turned Dorian's eyes. It looked like another flash of lightning, but far too small, and no thunder accompanied its appearance. "JSEF 2, fire three rounds into that cloud formation. Flush the bastard out."

No sooner had the order left his comm than the mobile flak cannon behind him bucked on its tracks, cracking the blacktop beneath it as it launched three consecutive rounds into the sky. A few seconds later, glowing yellow shrapnel blasted open the stormclouds. In the midst of the sudden chaos, a stealthy black fighter dropped into view. Its engine ports flared blue as it halted its decent, hovering in the air as the pilot decided his next move.

"JSEA 2, 6, bring that bitch down," Dorian ordered. Obediantly, the sound of anti-aircraft fire filled the night as two JS tanks equipped with chain-guns opened up on their newly-revealed target. Tracers lanced through the air, reaching up towards the hovering fighter. But the pilot had already made his move.

****

The Deimos II rocked as heated shrapnel bounced off it, denting and scarring the fighter's light armor. A spiderweb crack appeared on the canopy. Jerik winced, hurling the plane into a dive. Too late, he realized his mistake- alarms went off all over his cockpit, warning of targeting locks. He had to think fast- too fast. The first round of anti-aircraft fire screamed upwards to his left.

Again, Jerik put the Deimos II into a dive, rolling away from the anti-aircraft rounds and down towards Perriglasse. Seconds later, he was roaring between skyscrapers, juking sideways and down alleyways to prevent the JSEA and JSEF tanks to get a lock on him. With each new turn, he sped further through the militia blockade, dodging fire and returning some of it. His own chain-guns blazed to life, cutting a swath of destruction down the street, turning one JS tank into a fireball as the heavy-caliber rounds ate through its armor and into its ammunition bins. The Deimos II was several hundred yards beyond it when the explosion brought down the two nearest buildings.

A holographic map rotated slowly to his left, showing him his target in relation to his current position. It still seemed too far away, though he was closing on it at close to 18 meters per second. The windows on the skyscrapers rocked and shattered as his fighter screamed by. Suddenly, the whirling blades of two assault VTOLS swept into his path. The aircraft were still three blocks up, but he was moving too fast to avoid them. Even as they fired on him, he was putting a stream of bullets desperately into the one on the left, angling for it in the hope that he would pass through an inferno rather than armor. The VTOL erupted under the hailstorm of chain gun rounds, but it did not help Jerik. Deimos II screamed in mechanical agony as it tried to force its way through the wreckage still hovering above the street. Flames and twisted metal screeched over his fighter's armor, jamming one intake. The II's right engine coughed and died, sending the plane on a slow yaw.

Jerik fought the controls, trying to force it back on track, but he could feel his fighter dying around him. Its sleek appearance was becoming far too battered, and unlike the archaic fighters created so long ago, the Deimos II relied on armor and speed, not raw durability. Despite its tough shell, it was a delicate machine, and its pilot knew neither would live through this hell.

The research hanger - his target - swept into view.

Deimos II gave another lurch as the surviving chopper put heavy gunfire into his tail. A warning light flared under his controls - weapons release jammed. Jerik cursed bitterly, watching as the hanger grew larger in his vision. The cracked cockpit suddenly became mesmerizing, and he tried to focus on that rather than what he was about to do. The hanger door crumpled and split open as the II hit it. Through the sparks and haze, Jerik caught the eyes of one bewildered scientist. They stared at each other for an instant.

Then the room filled with fire.

****

"Colonel, Research Lab 3 just went up. We've lost, sir."

"Damn it!" Dorian cursed, shaking rain from his graying hair. "Those suicide pilots always get us. How many JS tanks did we lose?"

"Twenty-one at last count, fifteen dead and thirty-two injured, not counting the personel in the hangers." The TOE officer read off the casualty report blandly, as he had done many times before. It had ceased to bother him that he reduced men to either a "dead" or "wounded" category, or that they mattered little more than the machines they piloted. Among officers who had to keep Tables of Organization and Equipment, it was a common attitude. "All told, we're looking at something like a hundred dead and twice that many wounded. We're still waiting on Diego Division's report, though all three Deimos pilots are confirmed dead."

"Damn, that many," Colonel Dorian said in disgusted awe. "If we lose any more live-fire exercises this badly, we'll never be ready for a war."