"Whooo! That was a fuckin' thrill a minute," she said.
"Uh huh." Jack was still swallowing his stomach and barely managed the response. Stars raced across his vision as the blackness that was threatening to engulf him faded out of view.
"Gomers in sight just below us, cherubs one."
"Got them on eyeball. Going to missiles. Fox three!" Jack fired. A missile leaped from underneath the fighter and silently zipped across the sky, locking QM sensors onto the tail of the Stinger. The Seppy Gomer would never know what hit him. Jack and Fish had dropped in on them so fast that there was no way they would have time to react.
"Fox three!" Fish shouted. Her missile twisted in only milliseconds behind Jack's at the next-to-last enemy fighter in the formation.
Jack's missile hit home, totally destroying the Stinger. The plane tumbled and spread out, leaving a field of debris along its trajectory that finally crashed into the surface several kilometers away. The fighter's wingman burst into a fireball almost as quickly as Karen's missile tore through it.
"Splash six! Ace plus one for the day," Fish said.
"It could still be a long day, Fish," Jack replied.
"It's already been pretty goddamned long," she added.
The lead two Stingers pulled up from the deck and to the left. Jack and Fish quickly overtook them since they were still flying at a much faster relative speed. The enemy fighter's bank slowed them enough that the two Gods of War flew right by them—almost an amateur mistake. Almost.
The two enemy planes barrel-rolled over each other and banked behind them, accelerating and going to guns. Jack toggled his mecha into bot mode, and the snub-nosed Ares-T fighter pitched over and transfigured quickly. The mechanized bot stood upside down on its head and spun around, facing the enemy Stingers on his tail. With no atmosphere, his bot continued along the same vector at eight hundred kilometers per hour.
Two yellow Xs appeared in DeathRay's mindview, tracking the paths of the Seppy fighters that were bouncing and bobbing in and out of his line of sight. The yellow X on his left attacker blinked red, then back to yellow, then back to red, and finally locked on red.
"Guns, guns, guns," Jack said, firing the forty-millimeter railgun cannon now on his right arm. The tracers tracked into the incoming enemy mecha, blasting it to bits. The second yellow X blinked red and locked on, and he fired the cannon on his left arm. The cannonfire ripped through the Stingers right tail but didn't do enough damage. It kept coming and firing at him.
"Shit," Jack muttered as he kept aiming with the cannons trying to close a firing solution on the enemy plane. It fired at him again, and the tracer rounds zipped past his cockpit. Jack kicked the HOTAS and spun clockwise and head-over-feet into a full flip, trying to evade the enemy.
"Warning. Enemy targeting system has lock. Warning. Enemy targeting system has lock," Jack's Bitchin' Betty repeated.
"Fox three!" Fish said, loosing a missile that blasted out in front of the enemy fighter and exploded just as it was starting to go to guns again. The fighter flew into millions of pieces with a bright orange fireball.
Jack looked over his right shoulder to see Fish's mecha in fighter mode, flying backwards and upside down. Her fighter yawed back and forth as if she were looking for something else behind them, and then it pitched back over to normal flight. He heard her groan and curse from the g-loading.
"Good shot, Fish." Jack toggled back to fighter mode and fell back into lockstep formation with her.
"You owe me one, partner!"
"DeathRay, this is Poser. Glad y'all decided to come down from on high and join the party."
"Roger that, Poser. Looked like there was more action going on down here."
"You got that . . . shit . . . fox three!"
Chapter 15
October 31, 2388 AD
Sol System
Tampa, Florida
Saturday, 7:17 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
The marines had formed up around the presidential limo and finally led the First Family to safety out of the madness that had ensued at the Magic Kingdom. Something had taken over all of the AIs within the entirety of the Walt Disney World Orlando property as well as several lakes and businesses surrounding it. But the president had made it to safety.
Several bot-mode FM-12s trotted along beside the limo, while others in fighter mode and eagle mode followed above at treetop level. The marine mecha had led the hovercraft down Interstate 4 at over two hundred kilometers per hour until it met up with a Starhawk that picked them up and then flew them the rest of the way into MacDill Air Force Base and the U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters.
Lieutenant General Howard Brown met the First Family personally as they landed on the lifter pad just outside the main HQ in the center of the USSOCOM pentagon. The joint forces of the special ops squads stood guard in FM-12s, along each apex of the exterior pentagon. The marine squadron of FM-12s that had protected the president stood at attention in bot mode, surrounding the Starhawk in a circle and looking outward from it.
"Mr. President! It is very good to see you in one piece, sir!" The three-star general offered President Moore a hand, then likewise to the First Lady and their daughter. The battered and haggard-looking Secret Service agents took up positions around them as they walked down the rear ramp of the troop carrier.
"General," Moore nodded. "What the hell is going on?"
"Let's get you inside, Mr. President."
"The First Lady and your daughter are getting cleaned up, and we're having a doctor look at Dee's arm. They are just a few doors down if you need them, sir," Thomas whispered into the president's ear.
"Thank you, Thomas." Moore nodded. The young marine had been battered to hell and back, and he was still not faltering and not budging from the president's side. Thomas blended into the woodwork and stood at the ready quietly with his back against the wall. Moore sat back in his leather chair in the general's conference room and sipped at the coffee that the Army lieutenant colonel had just brought him. "Mmmm. Needs sugar, and how about some breakfast in here."
"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."
"General, there is a transmission going out over the news services that I think we need to see, sir!" A full-bird Air Force colonel rushed into the conference room and started tapping controls on the projection system.
A wall holoscreen jumped to life with the Earth News Network logo emblazoned across the bottom with the ticker-tape newslines running at a speed reader's pace. The scene playing was from somewhere inside the Disney World Magic Kingdom amusement park that looked like the inside of the White House.
"Been there," Moore said.
"Uh, yes sir. That is the Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World as best we can tell. It gets really interesting in just a minute," the Air Force colonel replied. The general leaned back as he sipped his coffee and nodded at the colonel approvingly.
Several AI-driven dead presidents walked into the view. Two of them were dragging a woman kicking and screaming at them the whole time. George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt took flanks on either side of her. Each of them was holding a railgun pistol. At that point, several other dead presidents filed in behind. Each set of two presidents were holding a human against their will.
Then another figure walked in behind the crowd. Like a sea parting, the dead presidents pulled their hostages aside to allow Sienna Madira, the one hundred and eleventh president of the United States, to walk through. The AI-driven amusement park robot looked just like the former beloved president. The Madira likeness walked deadpan and expressionless up to the woman in front between George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt. With robotic efficiency and coldness, the Sienna Madira bot pulled up a pistol, held it to the young woman's head, and pulled the trigger.