Throttle Fifty-Two

The Hercules didn’t have the same flight characteristics as the Cerberus. That much would be obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. The ship was smaller, though it wasn’t that much lighter than the Cerberus. The Hercules’ form was aerodynamic enough that as Diana hit the atmosphere properly it only rattled a little. The ship’s shield flicked on, creating a teardrop bubble around the craft that kept the wind off of it. A few tweaks to the shield’s shape would be enough to change their flight profile.

Diana pushed the throttle up a smidge and checked on the ship’s health readout. All green. “Targets,” she said.

“Adding them to your heads up display,” ChaOS said.

A few dozen little squares appeared on the screen before her. They had information in thin script next to them: distances in thousands of metres, the name of the target, the percentage chance of there being civilian casualties.

“Let’s weed out any target with anything above a seventy-five percent chance of civilians being around,” Diana said.

“That will remove some of the more expensive targets. Notably, any of the more culturally-relevant ones.”

“We’ll do a fly-by and see if there’s anyone around. Maybe we can hit them with flash-bangs or something to scare off the civilians before we hit the location with an actual strike,” Diana said.

“Your suggestion is noted. Repurposing some of our missile payload now.”

She nodded. Getting those missiles off would be nice. The reduction in weight alone would be worth it. The Hercules felt a bit heavy. It wasn’t unmanoeuvrable; far from it, the Hercules had excellent lateral thrust and could accelerate fairly well. The main engines on it were the same as on the Cerberus, only the vessel was smaller and lighter.

It just didn’t feel like a racing ship. Too big and cumbersome for Diana’s tastes. Still, it would do what she needed doing.

“Mistress, incoming interceptors. Here, here, and here.”

Three red arcs appeared on her HUD, all of the coming from the city she was charging headlong towards. Screens popped up, showing zoomed-in forms of far-off ships made blurry by the distance.

“I don’t recognize those,” Diana said. They were flat, nearly triangular vessels with an offset cockpit and a long swept-forwards wing. She couldn’t make out any weapons systems, but they were so far that the planet’s curve almost hid them from view.

“Nor do I. One moment… I see. They are clearly Bolgian air-space superiority fighters. Larger than the Probers they use outside of the planet’s atmosphere. They are unshielded vessels. I have observed them using kinetic weapons in close proximity to other vessels, but for the most part, they favour mid-to-long range air-to-air missiles. I believe that they also help ground-artillery with target tracking and positioning.”

“So don’t let them get a lock on me,” Diana said.

“Exactly. Speaking of which.”

The cockpit flashed red and a blinking prompt appeared off to one side that red MISSILE LOCK in large, block letters. “Well, that’s annoying,” Diana muttered.

With her rushing towards the capital city and the three interceptors rushing right back at her, it didn’t take long for the two to meet.

Diana pivoted her ship to the side, pulled back on the throttle, and went into a tight turn that had her pressed back into her seat. She picked out one of the three, the one that had been to her right.

The other two, seeing the obvious course her turn would take her through, fired.

Two missiles from two fighters faced out and ahead towards the Hercules, both screaming through the air on jets of white smoke.

Point-defence guns popped out of their housing on the ship’s surface, spun around, and opened up on the incoming missiles. Two explosions rocked the sky above the edges of the city. They weren’t the only ones though. Diana was peripherally aware of other ships and racers moving around closer to the ground. The city was starting to fill with columns of smoke where targets were hit and where ships crashed down onto the megalopolis.

Her turn ended with her tailing after the fighter she’d picked out. A reticule appeared on the screen, and she brought it up and onto the fighter craft before her. Her finger squeezed on the trigger built into her yoke, and a pair of railguns barked.

Twin trails of condensed air sliced the sky from the front of the Hercules and through the fighter.

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She juked to the side to slip past the explosion left by the fighter, then she started to turn again. “They still have a lock?” she asked.

“They do, Mistress,” ChaOS answered.

Two more missiles darted out. Her point-defence swatted one out of the air, but the second was left alone. It flew right past the Hercules, unable to turn tight enough to hit the ship as it cut in towards the second fighter.

Diana pitched her ship around so that more of her point-defence guns were towards the fighter. They opened up, shredding the ship apart as they crossed each other at less than a hundred metres.

The last remaining fighter, likely seeing how things were going, went all out.

“Multiple contacts.”

A missile took off, then another, then another. The speed in which it was launching them meant that they’d interfere with each other, but the other pilot didn’t seem to care much. They were probably panicking.

Diana fired her manoeuvring thrusters at full blast, snapping the ship around so that it was facing towards the barrage of missiles heading her way even as she tumbled backwards through the air.

She had to wrestle with the controls to keep the ship flying even vaguely in a straight arc. The reticule before her jumped and skipped even as she pulled back on the thrust.

Her eyes narrowed and her focus tunnelled in on that single white circle hovering before her. Tiny, minute adjustments with the dozens of thrusters on the ship allowed her to fight back against the jitters.

The missiles were screaming in, plumes of white trailing after them.

She ignored those as her eyes locked onto a grey blur behind the missiles.

Her finger twitched, and the Hercules rumbled faintly as its two forward-firing railguns went off.

One of the rounds pierced through an oncoming missile. The other rammed into the cockpit of the fighter and came out the back of the ship trailed by what she imagined were important components and about half of the pilot’s body mass.

Diana spun the Hercules around, faced it straight down, then shoved the throttle to max. With gravity helping her along, she rocketed towards the ground and below the barrage of missiles which had to arc down hard to try and keep up.

Her eyes darted across the screen until she spotted one of her targets: a communications array. It was a big building with a panoply of poles and sensors sticking off of its roof.

“Waste not,” she muttered as she raced towards it. The missiles started to catch up behind her.

Levelling her ship off over the rooftops of the city’s tallest buildings, Diana started to trace a route through the communications arrays atop the building.

It would be tight, but…

She flipped the ship onto its side and fired its manoeuvring thrusters to keep its flight even. There was only a metre or two to spare, and she couldn’t afford to have her course altered at all. “Flicker the shields,” she ordered.

“Mistress, do you… oh, very well.”

Just as the Hercules crossed between the antenna towers atop the roof, its shields flicked off, preventing them from bumping against any of the pillars. The moment they were through, the shields came back on.

Behind them, the towers and arrays shifted and creaked as the wind and turbulence of her passing shoved against them.

Then the first of the missiles trailing after her rammed headlong into a pole and detonated in a brilliant ball of white fire.

The others raced heedless into the explosion and exploded with the same fervour.

“Was that necessary, Mistress?” ChaOS asked.

“No, but it was cool,” Diana said as she levelled off their flight. She checked the skies for trouble, saw plenty—but none that was after her just yet—then she veered off towards her next target. She needed those points, after all.

“Mistress, I’ve noticed that you’ve gained some attention from a squad of racers. They’re veering off on an intercept course.”

“Should I be concerned?” she asked.

“During the time I was monitoring movements over the capital, that group took out three other competitors. Their tactic seems to centre around eliminating the competition before earning points for themselves.”

“Well now, that’s just rude,” Diana said.

She took in the city around her, then nodded. It was an arena she could use. “Let’s see what they think of competition that’s a little more fair.”

***