Jackson's neural interface flickered with disbelief. So NPCs can initiate private comms now? He smirked at the tactical overlay's blinking prompt. In Imperial Eagle, only squadmates could bypass the military-grade comms protocol—a feature designed to mirror real warzone restrictions.

"Need your bird shot down." He transmitted to the unidentified fighter, gambling on its AI simplicity. "Phoenix Five. Now."

The response came in a synthesized giggle. "Okaaay~" The triangular-winged craft banked sharply toward its target.

Xiao Xun'er's threat radar pulsed amber. The mystery fighter's IFF tag remained neutral gray—untargetable under Geneva Virtual Arms Treaty protocols. Idiot, she thought as Fox-Two slowed to rendezvous with the bogey. Should've kept running.

"Locking in three..." Her targeting reticule glowed crimson.

The gray icon flashed red. Combat AI screamed warnings as g-forces slammed her into the ejection seat. Her Thunderbolt IV executed a textbook Immelmann turn, contrails painting spirals in the stratosphere.

Two against one. Standard evasive pattern Delta.

She never saw the killing move coming.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Jackson's holographic display exploded with data. The bogey—callsign shifting to "Avril"—performed a maneuver that defied physics: a barrel roll into vertical scissors, ending with a snap shot that vaporized Phoenix Five.

"Holy hell!" His gloved hands trembled. "That's 15g minimum. No pilot survives..."

The kill notification burned in his retina: CS2012 eliminated Phoenix Five.

Avril's laughter crackled through neuro-comms. "Surprise~"

Fox-Six's avatar materialized, holographic insignia marking her as active military. "That maneuver—it's identical to Admiral Koyama's record at Proxima Centauri."

"Impossible." Fox-Eight's biometrics spiked. "The Black Sky protocols..."

Jackson muted his mic. This wasn't some scripted NPC. The way Avril's IFF tag flickered between gray and green... She's rewriting the game's source code in real-time.

Two women emerged from immersion pods, combat gel dripping from flight suits.

"System says Fox-Two killed us." The brunette slammed her fist against the console. "That's bullshit, Captain D'Arcy!"

The redhead captain pulled up combat logs. "Look. The kill cams show his Thunderbolt firing the killing shot every time."

"But the trajectory angles—"

"Are within 0.03% variance of human capability." D'Arcy's eyes narrowed. "Either we're hallucinating, or someone cracked the Quantum Validation System."

Jackson's digital safehouse shimmered into being—a floating island in the neuro-net's dark matter sea. Avril's fighter materialized without authentication protocols.

"You hacked my private server." He drew his neural sidearm.

"Relax, flyboy." Her avatar morphed into a silver-haired girl with quantum fractals for eyes. "Just returning the favor. Heard you're looking for... certain solar system records?"

The data packet hit his cortex before he could blink—a star map older than human civilization.