They had taken damage in the rear shielding, and three of the external sensors were gone giving her little view on the port side. The forward sensors cleared after a repair, and she looked out to see a gray lit day and a stretch of ruffled white gray water with a few lumps of island rising in the mist.
Her heartbeat settled a little, as she realized she’d gotten through her very first air battle. “Wow.”
She heard Jess release her harness behind her and after a moment, she felt a hand on her shoulder. With a start, she half turned and looked up, blinking a little sweat out of her eyes. “Yes?”
Jess smiled at her. “Good job.”
Dev smiled tentatively back.
Jess reset some triggers and then retrieved another two of the drink containers, handing one over to Dev before she returned to her own chair.
Dev set the container into it’s swivel and wiped her damp hair back off her brow. She could imagine she still felt the pressure against her shoulder of Jess’s fingers and gave herself a moment, just a small one, to savor this bit of accomplishment.
Then she went back to the boards, continuing the process of resetting alarms and assessing damage. They were running at top speed a thousand feet over the waves and she could see fog rising from the water everywhere, swirling behind them as their exhaust stirred it.
It was eerie, and a little beautiful.
“They’ll be waiting for us at Alterra.” Jess said. “We need to make this fast. I’m feeding you up the coordinates to the science center. Head right for it.” She keyed something into her pad. “Make em believe we’re going to ram this thing right into entrance.”
“Okay.” Dev said. “Are we actually going to do that?”
“No, Dev. Dying’s not on my schedule today.” Jess chuckled a little. “Just make them think we are. Then go somewhere else.”
Go somewhere else. Dev turned and shook her head a little. She saw the coordinates plot on her navigation grid and she flexed her hands, putting them back on the controls and taking off the auto nav.
At the edge of the grid she could see the Alterra escarpment, and as she did, she saw a set of blinking lights erupt from it. “Is that them?”
“Yes,” Jess slammed back into her seat and pulled her controls around. “Looks like they spotted us.”
The lights multiplied and doubled, tripled, filling the screen with alerts and causing the scan to erupt. “There’s a lot of them.”
“Yup.”
Dev could see them coming in from all directions. “This is going to be difficult.”
“Only hard things are worth doing, kid.” Jess said. “Remember that.”
Dev stared at the oncoming armada. “Okay.” She shifted her hands on the controls. “I will try to remember that.”
“Good.” Jess tightened her harness and took a deep breath. She got herself set and made live the guns, checking the power reserves and finding them acceptable.
She hoped her diversion would let Elaine and Jason check the place where they’d last seen the other two teams. She had no idea what they would find given the carrier she’d blown up. But they knew where to look and they knew what to do with what they found.
She checked the time, and checked her plan grid. Then she started the targeting systems and let the targets flood her consciousness.
There were a lot. She lined up the first six and launched a blast on alternating forward guns, glad the carrier’s weapon systems had a slightly longer range than their enemy’s. She could see them forming into attack circles and one of them dove right for them.
In a heartbeat, they were in the center of a circle of death. The enemy ships matched synch with them and started firing, and Jess fired back, then found herself inverting as the carrier did a barrel roll and the lasers rotated with the ship, nailing at least part of all of the enemy fighters.
Then they were through that bunch and going nose on to a second, when two of that group dove right at them.
Jess fired the forward guns and as they flashed by she grabbed a breath as she inverted again and went under heavy G as the carrier turned on it’s tail and her fire went right up the tailpipes of the retreating enemy ships and blew them out of the sky.
Holy crap.
Still upside down, Jess found herself launching a plasma bomb towards a cluster of fighters and then just before she started getting lightheaded they were right way up and she was holding her triggers down on the forward guns as they went full speed through enemy lines.
Dev was concentrating as hard as she could. She was aware of the strain on the engines under her control, but she used all the power she had to keep the carrier on a constantly shifting course as the air around her was filled with enemy fire.
Some was hitting the carrier. She had alarms going off again. The forward screen was almost constantly whitewashed with their own return guns as Jess blasted a path for them through the enemy ships.
The carrier was larger than the defenders, and better armored. The defenders were more agile and faster.
Dev spotted the entrance to the science center, a flat platform halfway up the escarpment with thick barracades in front of it. The door looked like it was big, and metal, and pretty much the same as the ones in the Interforce facility.
She spotted another wheel of figures fit themselves around her and she did another barrel roll, then her eyes widened as she came out of the inversion right into the path of a larger, more well armored craft.
She could see the laser cannons on top of it so she sent the carrier almost straight down, flinching a little as two of the enemy crashed into each other over her head. She pulled up in a high G arc with all her engines firing, gritting her teeth against the pressure as she came up just under the bigger craft, hearing Jess let loose with the upper guns on it.
‘Nice!” Jess yelled.
Dev managed a brief grin as she dove for the waves again, seeing huge breaking waves below her. She could feel the impacts on the hull of fire and a quick glance at the monitors showed a dozen darts coming after her all shooting continuously.
Alarms blared.
Dev aimed right for the sea, hearing the mounting damage in her commsat. She knew she had to get out of range of them before the lasers blew the carrier apart.
Jess was firing the rear guns. “Not much juice left!” She yelled.
Dev pulled the nose up just as they reached sea level as a huge breaker rolled up right into her path. She shot down the center of it, taking the carrier right through the huge phosphorescent tube of water as Jess let out a shout of surprise.
They shot out the other end of the tube and Dev blinked as the salt wash cleared and they were moments away from the escarpment.
She heard a huge disruption behind her. But there was no time to wonder what it was as she fought to control her craft and get the nose up before they went headlong into the rock face.
By a whisper they didn’t. She shot up the face of the cliff as Jess launched plasma bombs in a thumping salvo against it. She held the carrier in it’s straight up climb until they shot up over the top of it and right into the cloud layer just above.
A blue light was flashing hard on the comms console. Dev didn’t have time to look at it though. She arched the carrier over as they reached an altitude almost too high for the jets and curved back over into level flight.
Her heart was absolutely racing. She could feel shivers going up and down her spine and she was alternately feeling flushed and chilled, panting through her open mouth as she caught her breath.
“Keep going!” Jess yelled. “Go go go! They got them! We did it!!”
Dev stared in confusion at the console. “What?”
“The light.” Jess pointed. “That’s an ultraviolet squirt from Jason. They got them. Get out of here! We did it!”