Closing the engagement distance, I pressed the sequence of commands to shed my black out shielding and expose the deadly craft beneath. The shielding peeled away like shingles, flaking off from stem to stern like dust in the wind. As soon as the shielding was gone, my fusion engine ignited, accelerating me into battle. My wing mates comms went live moments later and I opened the channel.

“Look alive people, we’re coming in hot and heavy. The kinetics launched before us should detonate any second making it difficult to spot our craft for a few more seconds but that won’t last long.” As I finished my sentence, bright flashes filled my sensors as the kinetics did just as I said, flowers of kinetic energy pushing out in cones before us.

“Hey, boss, I got hydrogen left. What should I do with it?”

Not even glancing at my display, I knew the same was true for myself. “Burn it Alpha three. We can’t afford the extra mass and it did its job of concealing us on the way over.”

“Roger that.” All three of us clicked to add the hydrogen to our fusion engines and put on a little extra thrust as we closed with the enemy dreadnought.

Relying on our piloting, we gained a momentary glimpse into the paths of objects in space, giving us a tiny amount of precognition as we flew. This gave us the ability to see a moment into the future, to see where we would be, to see where enemy projectiles would be, to predict what we could do to avoid enemy fire. Obviously it wasn’t perfect nor was it very long. But when you’re moving at kilometers per second, a quarter second adjustment is a different of hundreds of meters and can allow you to slid past what would otherwise be certain doom.

I engaged my active sensors, letting everyone know where we were as I got a clear view of where and what the enemy was. It took a second or two for the details to resolve, signals travelling at the painfully slow speed of light, but shortly I knew where our target was and sent the course deltas to Alpha two and three.

My lancer began to scream at me, flak was inbound. I monitored the paths the flak would take, keeping an eye on the potential kill zones depending on what distance they were set to detonate at. I instructed my wingmates to adjust their position relative to the plane the flak was on so as to pass through the least hazardous zones.

My wing wove, passing though dangerous areas with mere meters to spare. Hold up, wait a minute, “meters are huge” one might say. Consider that the lancer’s hull is almost eight meters wide and the bits of metal we’re dodging are measured in tens of centimeters, multiply that by velocities measured in kilometers per second, where collision energies are measured in hundreds of kilograms of TNT per kilogram of mass, and it becomes ‘mere meters.’ Add to that the fact that we discarded all armor except for normal debris shielding, and we’re basically piloting aluminum frame drag racers with rocket engines strapped to the back right now. With a payload of nukes for good measure. I love my job.

We saw the other wings on sensors, lighting up like the noonday sun off our flanks. I grinned and pressed the throttle up, careful not to pass our shielding flak that had been launched ahead of us. As we crossed the quarter-light second line, the flak from our ships detonated, turning multiton projectiles into a hailstorm of semi-molten metal and hate. I watched the paths, planning our final approach and sending over planned vectors to Alpha two and three.

“Alrighty boys, it’s showtime!”

“Yeehaw!”

We took the plunge, adding ten gs of acceleration to our craft as we sped into new volleys of enemy flak. Our flak caused many of their new rounds to detonate prematurely, further filling the area with chaotic particles of death, but we pressed on, pulsing and yipping as dodged hazards before they reached us.

Suddenly the attack window was upon us, the critical point at which we could unleash our violent payloads. I armed my warheads, placing critical zones of pressure vessels as ideal targets for the lances to target.

“Birds away!” I alerted my team as I let loose, three tandem nukes dropping from my lancer.

Quickly I flipped stem over stern and applied thrust to kill my velocity. I felt a kick in my gut as the engine roared through my craft. The blood briefly left my retina and my vision went grey then black as my eyes were starved of blood. I heard a proximity alarm from my right and just twisted my vessel’s thrust to push me away. I felt a shudder through my craft and entered an uncontrolled spin. I eased off the thrust, letting the blood rush back through my body.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

My skin tingled and pulsed as I took a deep breath, my vision clearing. I glanced over all my readouts as I began to slowly counter the spin with the Rotation Correction System. My hydrogen tanks had taken hits and were probably obliterated, but the rest of my ship seemed intact. That was close, it could have been just a meter closer and hit my engine. My heart continued to race as my velocity flipped directions as began to point back in the direction of the carrier.

“Status check?” I looked at my team readouts but the data feeds had been interrupted by the hit.

“All good, Alpha one.” Alpha two’s voice came through crisp and calm.

“I’m intact.” Alpha three chimed in, a little shaky.

“Glad to hear it. I took a little hit, but all systems appear green. Won’t be able to pull a hydrogen steamer again for some time though, hydrogen tanks seem gone.”

“We’re glad you’re in one piece, Alpha one. Let’s get back home?”

“That is a wilco from me, Alpha two. See you in the bay.”

The three of us slowly accelerated back to the carrier, and I surveyed the damage we had wrought from my logs. Only one of each of our missiles made good hits, but the damage inflicted made up for the low accuracy. The deck my nuke had landed in was apparently a water tank of some kind and the explosion overpressured the incompressible fluid into the rest of the vessel along every weakness it could find. It was like a high pressure saw, spraying through solid metal left and right. Before our attack, the dreadnought had out tonned our carrier by at least an order of magnitude. Such was no longer the case, the three missiles having shredded and torn at the hull, making entire sections explode and slough off like some leprous flesh. The trailing craft had to not only contend with their own attack, but now their lead dreadnought’s debris, filling space with deadly razors of metal.

It goes without saying that not only was the attack a stunning success, but that my wing had performed admirably and above all expectations I could have held. We were all coming home, an anomaly among wing missions. Frequently thirty to forty percent losses were anticipated, and it wasn’t unusual to see entire wings wiped in the completion of a mission. I was happy and proud of my men as I put in the autopilot and proximity alarms and then closed my eyes.

I was back for a second interview, which left me both uncertain and very happy. I didn’t know how many stages to this process there were, but I was glad to have cleared the first hurdle.

Scott greeted me at the receptionist’s desk and, after I signed a non disclosure agreement, led me back into a lab.

“This is where the magic happens.” He said, showing me the window into a clean room. Within several techs wearing full bunny suits with not an inch of skin exposed, helped a man wearing just a pair of loose shorts into a chair. Yellow disinfectant covered the man’s skin and he looked like he was a bit out of it. The techs placed electrodes all over his body before placing a helmet upon him, concealing his half lidded eyes from view. The bed reclined and then slowly closed around him, reminding me vaguely of an iron maiden, sans metal spikes. “They’re getting him ready to enter the System.”

“That’s the game? Or ‘experience’ is probably more accurate, no?”

He chuckled and smiled. “Yes, Dwayne, that might be more accurate. That didn’t make you uncomfortable to watch did it?”

“Not at all. It’s a bit strange, but then I’ve never seen a long term hibernation capsule outside a movie before.”

“That’s good, very good.” He snickered a bit at my quip. “I’m glad you don’t feel weirded out by it. A number of candidates got squicked out by the idea of being closed in like that. I promise that it’s very necessary to allow us to keep very close monitoring on your health.”

“Makes sense to me. I’d be eager to climb in and see what the fuss is all about.”

“You enthusiasm fills me with joy.” His eyes twinkled behind his yellow glasses. “Let’s introduce you to Doctor Alexis, who will be conducting your physical. I know, I know, we got your medical records, but this is all us doing due diligence. Our lawyers insisted.”

“Lead the way, Scott. I’m ready to make this happen.”

My ship chimed at me. It was time to align for docking. I shook myself to full awareness and began throttling to match speed and position with the docking slide. I smiled to myself as I briefly checked a notification.

“Achievement unlocked: David versus Goliath. Talent ‘Exploit Weakness’ unlocked. Provides extra damage to larger vessels when you have proficiency with the weapons in use and intel unlocked for the target in question.

“XP gained for successful completion of Operation Pillowfight: 150XP. Bonus for full wing survival: 50XP.”

Nice. With this I’d finally be able to buy a new Talent or two and push my skills to the next level, maybe even show that I’m ready to be the Wing Commander officially and fully. This was a great day.