by Ruby Ryan
I took a closer look at my control wheel. The buttons along the front were within reach of my thumbs, but there were a lot of them. I ran my thumbs over them, wondering which were weapons, and when my thumb brushed over one cluster the cockpit window changed. A targeting system appeared superimposed over the glass, instantly recognizable as something similar to what I'd see in a human spacecraft. Bingo! This cluster of buttons must have been weapons.
Whether due to me pulling up the targeting system, or because I was an obvious sight in their alien rear-view mirror, the Wolvae began evasive maneuvers. They slid away to the right, a sudden change in direction that would have been impossible in a human aircraft, and I had to scramble to whirl around and follow them. Then they were shooting up into the air and away, parallel to the ground again to the south. I quivered with excitement as I threw the wheel forward to follow.
My instincts were only as good as my information, and right now I had no idea what weapons were on this thing. I needed to know what I was working with. So I aimed the target reticule at the sky, winced, and pressed the first button on the wheel.
A burst of lasers shot away like tracer bullets, green flashes that were almost imperceptible if I weren't already watching. They didn't look like much but the Wolvae reacted like a frightened animal, darting to the left and down, then right again, zig-zagging over the Idaho mountains. I followed as best as I could, trying to get them to remain in the center of my reticule, but they were too chaotic.
Things were simpler in our human aircraft, where you had to fly in one damn direction.
I moved my thumb to the next button and fired. This time a pulse of light like a medieval mace shot away from the ship, thick and slow. It was like a missile made of light, but it didn't follow the Wolvae ship as I expected--it continued into the sky, slowly curving downward in a long arc. So that weapon had some sort of mass affected by the earth's gravity. It was out of sight before I could see where it landed; I hoped it didn't hit anyone out walking their dog in Colorado.
The third button didn't do anything, and neither did the fourth. Or, they did something, but I couldn't tell what.
Okay, Brandi. This is gunna be a good old fashioned dogfight. And to think us Airmen thought that type of training was outdated.
I returned to the laser bursts as I followed the Wolvae ship, spraying the lasers in their general direction but not doing much damage. I wondered if I would run out of ammo, or energy, or something; there was no indicator to tell me so.
Moreover, the Wolvae didn't return fire. That's when I noticed three smoldering chunks of metal on their exterior; I suspected those were defensive turrets that had already been damaged. Thank God for that.
I maneuvered the control wheel, spinning and diving and darting as best as I could.
Static suddenly crackled in the air, and then sound came from all around.
"Attention unidentified aircraft," said an Airman, "if you're reading on this frequency, please identify yourself immediately."
"Shit," I muttered. That was Mountain Home base.
"Pardon me?" they responded. They must have heard me.
"Hey there!" I said, trying to sound casual. "I, uhh, can explain. Just do me a favor and don't shoot me down."
There was a pause. "Lieutenant Colonel Forbes?"
I spun the aircraft to the left to keep up with the Wolvae. "You bet."
"But how... we've only made visual contact with the two aircraft. We have nothing on radar..."
"I'll explain later," I insisted. "Just please, please don't shoot me down."
The Karak aircraft cut off the connection before I could tell them to shoot the one I was chasing. Damn.
And then the mountains flattened into plains. I groaned as the Wolvae craft shot directly toward Boise, a skyline in the distance. Here's hoping they didn't have any weapons on the front of their craft.
I stopped firing as we neared the skyscrapers. The Wolvae seemed confused by them; they slowed as they approached, then abruptly zoomed diagonally between two of them, curving around the other side. I slowed my own aircraft enough to follow carefully, passing so close to the buildings that I could see faces pressed against the windows, gawking at the sight.
This was going to be an ordeal when all of this was over.
I put it out of my mind as I pulled the aircraft in a tight turn on the other side. The Wolvae dove low above the city, then up again like a roller coaster, but thankfully didn't shoot anyone.
They're trying to get out of range of the blocking device, I thought. They probably believed transmitting the data from our flight computer was of prime importance, and were confused as to what was stopping them.
Hopefully they wouldn't figure out that the range was limited.
They turned north again, accelerating quickly.
I threw the wheel forward farther than I had before, and the thrust shoved my head back into the seat. I couldn't let them get away! Tyrix and Kerix might be injured, or even dead, so it was all up to me. I had to stop them while I could.
The Wolvae craft grew quickly in my sight, much faster than I expected. I moved my thumb to the blaster button.
And almost realized my mistake too late.
I fired a salvo at the same time as I shot off to the right, avoiding the Wolvae ship that was now flying straight at me. It fired its own lasers into the space my craft had just occupied, wicked beams that looked like barbed harpoons, but I was already curving up and away.
The Wolvae followed, not chasing me instead of the other way around.
Instincts helped me perform evasive maneuvers, but it wasn't easy in a craft that was foreign to my hands. The Wolvae weapons flew past my cockpit to disappear into the blue sky, always just barely missing me no matter how sharply I changed directions.
"I need a rear camera or something!" I shouted into the empty cockpit. I was used to being able to twist my head around to see behind me. "Something? Anything?"
The ship lurched and shuddered as one of the beams struck the side. But she still flew, and no alarms came on, so it must have been a glancing blow.
I redoubled my efforts at avoiding them, flying in a pattern that probably looked like the needle of an earthquake seismograph.
The mountains to the north beckoned me. I was dead meat over the flat terrain outside of Boise; I needed to get somewhere I could use to my advantage. The Wolvae might have been better pilots in their ship, but I knew Idaho.
Besides, I needed to keep them near the transmitter, lest they get that communication out.
I stopped avoiding them and shot toward the mountains as fast as the ship could fly. I let out a squeal that was half fear, half excitement as the mountains spread all around me. Then I decelerated and dove, falling into the valley between the first two ridges, soaring just over the treetops and hoping they would make me a tougher target. I think it worked; the Wolvae attacks continued to shoot across my vision, but they were less accurate than before.
The valley ended, and I pulled up to try a tight half-loop to get behind them, but they followed me flawlessly.
I curved around the mountain peak, Wolvae beams striking the snow and sending up gouts of steam. Then back toward the forest, where trees were already reigniting from the blasts, tendrils of smoke in a line to mark my previous flight path. I spared a moment of pain for the forest--if I started a fire I could feel guilty about it later, not now--and then shot to the right, toward the mountain peak with the blocking device. Maybe I could keep them right around here. Buy some time.
But buy some time until what? Unless there was another Karak aircraft coming to my rescue, this was all up to me.
Suddenly the Wolvae beams no longer clawed at the sky. I gained some altitude from the trees and brought my craft around in a cautious circle.
The Wolvae ship was a tiny speck in the distance now, and growing smaller. I felt a moment of excitement that I would again be the hunter, but then the HUD superimposed on the cockpit glass flashed a warning in red
letters.
ORBITAL DRIVE POWER-UP DETECTED.
"Orbital drive," I said out loud, which made it more real. I could guess what that meant.
If they couldn't get a message out, they would simply leave earth altogether. What would I do then?
With no other option, I threw the control wheel forward and hoped I had enough time.
20
KERIX
She was magnificent.
At least, for a human who had never piloted a Karak craft before. I felt despair as the Wolvae ship departed, and although Brandi immediate gave chase in our own craft I knew she would be no match for them. Yet she had followed shockingly well, and had even discovered how to use the weapons.
I tended to Tyrix while watching them fight, a two-person dance in the sky.
She... does not know how to target, Tyrix said.
Indeed not, I said. I programmed the controls without much thought.
The missiles required telepathic Karak thought to guide to their target once launched; since she was a human, she obviously could do nothing but fire them in one direction. Essentially useless, since they were slower than the other gun.
They disappeared from sight, and when they returned it was the Wolvae chasing Brandi. Their ship was far inferior, but Brandi's novice flying made it a surprisingly balanced fight. They curved through the mountains in beautiful arcs, and even though I felt a constant fear for Brandi, my confidence in her steadily grew.
Several times, when the ship grew close to our location, I attempted to speak to her consciousness and request that she slow enough for me to join the craft and take over. But it was too difficult at their speeds, and I was unable to speak into her mind.
Then the Wolvae ship gave up its pursuit, turned, and shot away.
And the glow of a previously unused engine shone on the rear of the craft.
They are going to initiate their orbital drive, I said. That would take less than a minute. Where was Brandi? Why wasn't she following?
Hurry Brandi! I yelled to the heavens.
21
BRANDI
Hurry, Brandi!
I heard his voice in my head as I accelerated as fast as I could to follow the Wolvae. A pulsing of confidence, and love.
It gave me hope in my moment of despair. They were alive. My two Karak companions hadn't perished.
I wasn't going to fail. Too much was at stake in this moment to allow the Wolvae to escape. And all of it rested on my shoulders.
The aircraft flew impossibly fast. The ground was nothing but a blur, and tears leaked from the corners of my eyes even though there was no wind on my face inside the cockpit.
The Wolvae ship grew, but not as fast as I needed. And all the while, the warning continued flashing on my HUD.
I pushed the control wheel harder, begging it to go faster. My vision began to darken around the corners, a sign that the G-forces were restricting blood flow to my brain. Any more and I would pass out. What would happen then? Would the aircraft autopilot take over and gently land on the ground?
And then I could see a green translucent barrier in the air, shimmering queerly. I stared at it, and my oxygen starved brain took several moments to realize what it was: the barrier to the communication blocking device. We had flown this far north.
The Wolvae ship passed through it.
This was it. I was out of time. If I didn't destroy them within seconds they would transmit their data. Maybe they already had.
The HUD flashed with a new warning: ORBITAL DRIVE IGNITION IMMINENT.
Time seemed to slow down. As I neared the Wolvae ship, I could see a new engine on its rear, glowing an ominous shade of blue. It brightened like a supernova, white hot at the center. Then the ship tilted toward the sky and hovered in place for a strange moment. Like the stillness before a lightning strike.
Still flying insanely fast, I moved the control wheel a few millimeters until the enemy ship was in the center of my reticule.
How's this for paperwork? I thought as I pressed every button on the weapons cluster.
Everything fired at once: the machine gun laser blasts, and the thicker missile-like beams, and some smaller laser-rockets which curved chaotically in random paths toward the target. The laser blasts struck the flank of the ship, hitting some sort of shield; the energy appeared to be absorbed into the shield, illuminating the exterior of the entire craft.
My heart sank, but only for a second.
The first missile struck with a blinding flash of light. Then the second, and third, and the full dozen I had fired all exploded one after the other. They were bursts of brightness, sudden spheres that marred my vision and remained in my sight when I blinked, blocking out everything else.
They dimmed, and I saw the Wolvae craft.
It careened to the side and down, definitely down, losing altitude and belching smoke from its rear. It struck the trees roughly, tumbling end over end and forcing flocks of birds to take flight. And then it was still, and disappeared from my view as my own craft zoomed past it.
Knuckles white on the controls, I slowly eased back on the wheel to a reasonable speed.
Everything returned to a semblance of normalcy. The alarm no longer flashed on my screen. Sweat beaded my temple, and I was panting like I was out of breath.
I shot down an alien!
The thought was like every Christmas morning shoved into a ball and tossed hard at my chest. I did it!
Fuck yeah I did!
I curved around and got a better look at the Wolvae craft. There wasn't much to see because of all the smoke, which I took as a win. I was a long way from where Kerix and Tyrix were. Hopefully they were okay.
I brought the ship around to a heading that would take me back that way.
22
KERIX
She did it.
We heard the explosion without seeing it, a boom in the distance that echoed through the mountains for several long seconds. I knew what our modern Karak weaponry sounded like; Brandi had been the one to make the kill.
And as I focused with my consciousness, I felt her returning with our ship.
Here! I sent when she was near. Brandi piloted the aircraft over the trees until we came into view, then lowered it to the ground gently. The sound of our Karak engines sizzling was a comforting and welcome relief.
Before I knew what I was doing, I'd shifted into my human form and was running toward the craft. The door opened and she strode out, and I pulled her into my arms.
"You did it," I whispered into her hair. "That was magnificent!"
"Not too shabby for a human, eh?"
I pulled away, kissed her on the lips, and then returned to Tyrix.
I assisted him in shifting to his human form, which he was barely strong enough to muster. Brandi gave me a curious look, so I explained, "Our Karak forms are not as strong here with your planet's single sun. His healing will be more stable in a local body."
"Ahh."
We carried Tyrix inside the ship and made a bed for him in the cockpit. The Wolvae prisoner in the cargo hold howled with fury now that she knew her ship had been destroyed, which forced me to shift-create a sound barrier over the wall.
"Thank God," Brandi said. "She was a distraction during the dogfight."
Dogfight. A strange term for aircraft dueling. Dogs could not fly.
I shifted back into Karak form and took control of the aircraft and pulled us into the air. Brandi spread her arms and said, "Hey, you don't trust me anymore?"
You deserve a break, I explained.
She was practically bubbling with excitement. "Holy shit. I still can't believe I fought, and defeated, an alien spacecraft!"
It helps that our craft is thousands of years more advanced. And that the Wolvae exterior turrets were already destroyed. I felt Brandi's excitement wane at that comment, which pained me greatly, so I added, Still, an incredible feat.
Her smile returned two-fold as we soared over the terrain.
The Wolva
e craft was a smoldering mess, wreckage easily identified by the plume of smoke slowly drifting into the air. We landed nearby and then I reached out with my consciousness to search for Wolvae.
I sense nothing.
"Yeah. Because I killed it." Brandi's voice was full of bravado.
It is not that, I said as we left our craft. I should sense the lingering echo of the Wolvae consciousness, even in death. Yet there is none.
Brandi stopped outside the craft and held her hand up to protect her face from the heat. "Is the fire stopping you?"
It does not work this way.
"Oh, right," she said with a wry grin. "Because that would be crazy."
I extinguished the fire and entered the craft. A quick search of its three small rooms revealed no Wolvae bodies.
She must have escaped.
Brandi whipped her head all around, suddenly fearful, so I sent a feeling of calm into her mind. I am presently scanning the nearby territory. She is nowhere near here.
"So there's an alien wolf roaming the Idaho mountains right now?" I said.
Yes. However, she is useless without an aircraft. A concern for another time.
I returned to the Wolvae ship to complete a more thorough search of their data.
23
BRANDI
Oh, yeah. An alien wolf the size of an armored car was running around Idaho, but that was a concern for another time. Sure.
I tried to put it out of my head while I returned to our aircraft.
Tyrix lay flat on the bed, his eyes closed and his body still. Already his skin was a healthier looking shade, and when I put my hand to his forehead it was warm instead of cold. I took that to be a good sign.
Not sure what else to do with myself while Kerix searched the Wolvae ship, I crawled under the covers and wrapped my body over Tyrix's.
His eyelids fluttered and then opened a sliver, revealing his emerald eyes. Without moving his head they turned to look at me.
