"Wilco, out," I replied in compliance. I concentrated and visualized a red sphere before me. The sphere expanded rapidly until it consumed my view. A few moments later, the field of red dissolved into a panoramic display of the outside environment, as the full simsense interface came on line.
Currently my virtual body was crouched on the ground. I imagined myself crawling away from Johnny's Banshee on my hands and knees, and in the distance I could feel a slight nudge as the t-bird responded in real time. Once I was halfway around the rim of the quarry, I turned to face the center and looked up, to make a final check for aerial observers before taking off. I saw nothing except a hazy red and green glow to the northwest, residual emissions coming from the Metroplex in the distance.
With a sudden burst of motion, I launched forward, like a sprinter out of the blocks at the crack of the starter pistol. I sprinted at breakneck speed, the ground passing rapidly beneath the t-bird. As the opposite edge of the quarry loomed before me, I took a tremendous leap upwards, and the t-bird pulled up, while the walls of the quarry fell away.
Spreading my arms to my sides, I twisted upward, and the t-bird climbed higher and banked right in a slow and lazy arc. I watched below as Johnny's Banshee made its takeoff from the quarry. As the Banshee rose level with me in the sky, Clio's dispassionate voice came over the radio. "Angelfire, this is Starchild. Set your autonav to waypoint one at this time."
"Wilco, Starchild. Angelfire out." With the glimmer of a thought I relayed Clio's order to the t-bird's autonavigation system. In the darkness to the south, a single green dot flashed in my sight, indicating the point we were flying to. A series of numbers and hatch marks floated above my eyes, indicating the azimuth and heading. I watched Johnny's Banshee bank right towards the dot, before turning myself to fall in behind and to the left of Johnny, as we sped quickly into the evening twlight.
We reached our first waypoint, Mt. Rainier, about an hour later. I sprinted ahead of Johnny to clear the way, then swung in a lazy circle around the volcano. The mountain, dormant until Howling Coyote conjured his Great Ghost Dance some forty-odd years ago, glowed burgundy red on the thermographic overlay; however, radar and low-light scanning indicated nothing else out of the ordinary.
I continued my lazy swing around Rainier as Johnny approached the waypoint. As I spread the arms of my virtual body slightly, the throttle of the t-bird eased, allowing me to complete the circle and fall back in position on Johnny's wing. Our t-birds banked in synchronicity around the same curve I had traced previously. As we passed the arc's southern crest, Johnny and I slingshot eastwards, flying headlong like a discus leaving its thrower's hands.
From the corner of my eye I thought I saw something moving behind us. As I turned my head to look back, the visual scanners panned accordingly, until I was watching Mt. Rainier fade into the night. My vision was awash in color, as the orange haze of my own jetwash mixed with the umber glow of the mountain, but I nevertheless spotted what my intuition had caught: a heat signature rising from the mountain's base and settling into the trail directly behind us.
"Hey, Phil, heads up," I warned on the intercom. "We got company. He's using background heat from the mountain to mask his presence from us."
"Yeah, I see it." Phil's disembodied voice fell momentarily silent. "It's not magical, whatever it is. I just did an astral scan."
"Gotcha." I mentally keyed the radio. "Speedy Delivery, this is Angelfire. I've got an unknown behind us, Johnny. Bearing two-six-four, on a direct intercept from behind. Over."
"Roger, Josie, I see him," replied Johnny. "Let's see if we can-"
"Break, break, break," interrupted Phil into our conversation. "Ghost Rider here. We got another two contacts, flying behind the first in V-formation. They're flanking by a couple hundred of meters, looks like. Over."
Two more contacts? I broke my attention and took another look back. I couldn't see anything at first, so I cranked up the Low-Light amplification on the video. As the night sky brightened into an artificial green, I saw three specks in the distance where there used to be one. White boxes began to form over them, as the sensor's target recognition software began processing the telemetry for tracking.
"This is Angelfire, that's an affirmative on the new contacts," I reported. "Signature analysis indicates the lead bogey to be an Aztechnology Liebre pursuit UAV. The other two look like Wandjina combat drones. Wait… " I zoomed the visual display, until I could get a good look at all three. "… Visual confirmation on a set of ATGMs on each Wandjina. My guess is Outlaw Block IIs. Looks like they're t-bird hunting, Johnny."
"Copy, Josie. Those drones don't have good range, so let's try to outrun-" A high-pitched whine interrupted Johnny's broadcast, as the SWR screamed bloody murder. "Drek! We got painted! Break off, Angelfire, and splash those three bandits."
"Wilco, Speedy Delivery, out." I closed the communications window and mentally rearranged the simsense display for combat configuration. "Hang tight, Phil, time to go to work."
Doing a backwards somersault with my virtual body, I commanded the t-bird's thrusters to kick into reverse. The aircraft jerked suddenly and momentarily lost altitude as the jets worked to halt the craft's forward motion. Within a few seconds, the t-bird was hurtling at full speed in reverse. Meanwhile the three drones, apparently intent on bagging Johnny's Banshee, continued flying forward and passed straight over me.
"Phil, you get the Liebre with the gun. It's probably a spotter for the two tank hunters," I instructed over the intercom. "I'll take care of the wing drones."
"Gotcha, Jo-Girl," replied Phil. A half second later, a loud noise exploded above my head, as tracer rounds buzzed like psychotic fireflies toward the lead drone.
At the same time, I balled both of my virtual hands into fists, activating the missile fire control system and arming two Vogeljager air-to-air missiles. Concentrating on the Wandjina to the right, a green diamond materialized into view and zigzagged around until it centered on the drone. When the diamond came to rest, a continuous tone squealed in my ear, indicating target lock. I swung one arm forward, my hand opening as it tossed an invisible softball. In the real world, one of the two AAMs launched from the internal missile tubes and hissed as it spiraled ahead.
Once the first missile was under way, I focused my concentration on the second drone, and the green diamond moved from right to left. When the lock tone sounded again, I swung forward the other arm, and a second Vogeljager launched and spiraled leftwards.
No sooner was the second missile under way when a fiery orange blossom erupted, as one of the tracer rounds from Phil's autocannon ripped through the Liebre's fuel tanks. A few seconds later, the first Vogeljager connected, as the missile spiraled below the underbelly of the right Wandjina. The missile exploded, sending hot shards through the unmanned craft's underbelly. Several shards penetrated the fuel tanks, causing the drone to vanish in a ball of fire.
But as I turned to watch the other missile take down the last drone, the SWR trilled, warning of radar lock. Without seeing who was painting us, I instinctively twisted into a swan dive.
"Hey!" shouted Phil with a curse. "Wadjatink yer doin', Jo-girl?"
"We got another bandit, Phil, just showed up outta nowhere and painted us with his sensor," I shouted back through the intercom. Looking around to see where the other guy was, I located him when the missile he launched showed up behind our tail.
"Phil! Seeker at six!" I shouted. Immediately the auto-defense systems ejected a chaff bundle of aluminum strips to confuse the missile's radar seeker, while Phil swung the turret around in an attempt to down it. As I mentally switched on the Electronic Countermeasure systems to jam the missile, I simultaneously cut engine power. I could almost feel my stomach jump into my throat, as the thunderbird plummeted several thousand meters, stabilizing only a hair's length above the ground.