Dogfight

This was intolerable. The Grineer had been pushed back so far, now all of a sudden they were everywhere. It was…

Mitchell D29 hit his thrusters, making his small fighter dodge to the side as a wash of heavy metal slugs passed through where it had just been. He snarled as the Grineer fighter matched his maneuver, it's spray of fire coming dangerously close.

"Match this, you Grineer scum!" The Corpus pilot declared as he hit his retros.

His tiny ship was outmassed by the Grineer Grumash class fighter. The Grineer generally went for a 'bigger is better' approach and often that was good. In space in particular, added armor and armaments made a great deal of difference. In atmosphere? Not so much. The heavy Grineer ship flew right on by Mitchell D29's small ship and…

Crack, crack, crack! Mitchell D29 cursed as his shields sparked and damage indicators appeared on his HUD. The Grineer ships made up for their lack of in atmosphere maneuverability by having multiple weapon stations in several positions around the hull. The projectile weapons were not as heavy as the forward battery perhaps, but they were dangerous enough. He snarled again and triggered his neural feeds.

Missile.

The StarStrike missile was not a big weapon by the standards of space combat. It didn't need to be. Mitchell D29's ship and all of his squadron were not intended to do battle outside of atmosphere. There were other –more specialized- squadrons for that. He didn't need nuclear weapons to ensure a kill at the speeds that his A-789 fighter and the Grumash were travelling. The Grineer gunners, aware of their peril, tried to hit the missile, but it was the pinnacle of Corpus fighter craft technology. The StarStrike easily evaded their fire. The tiny robot that flew the missile was dumb even for a Corpus proxy, but it was smart enough to get close enough to the Grineer ship to detonate. Mitchell D29 smirked as the bright blue flash of the EMP went off and the Grumash's engines flickered and died. Grineer ships generally glided like bricks. It was highly improbable that the Grineer would be able to repair the shorted out systems before colliding with the surface below, but Mitchell D29 had not survived as long as he had as a Corpus pilot by trusting blindly. He followed the Grineer ship down at a respectful distance in case one of the gunners woke up. Then he triggered his neural feeds again.

Guns.

The two high intensity plasma cannon mounted under his cockpit flashed. His visor automatically polarized, keeping his vision clear. Not that he really needed it. He was part of his ship. He had been ever since he had finished indoctrination. He would never leave the ship. Not that he wanted to. He was loyal. He was part of the machine that was the Corpus.

The Grumash took both hits amidships and… kept on falling. Michel stifled a snarl. Grineer knew how to build tough ships, no question about that.

Rapid fire.

This time, the two plasma cannon fired in an alternating cycle. One pulse every half a second. Each pulse was the equivalent of about a ton of ancient Earth TNT on impact. It took seven pulses before the Grumash shuddered and then broke apart. Disappointed that it didn't explode, Mitchell D29 watched for a moment as Grineer fell from the doomed ship. But then he banked away. Not even Grineer would be able to survive falling from seven thousand meters. Even with the lower gravity of Phobos, all they could do was flail and scream. As he did, the engine section of the enemy ship burst into flames, but he had been hoping for an explosion. Low on fuel? Maybe. He didn't know and really didn't care.

Target destroyed. He reported across his neural link. Orders?

Status? The impersonal mental feel of the squadron command came back.

One missile expended. Minor damage to hull. Mitchell D29 replied instantly. Combat capacity unimpaired. Orders?

Enemy forces approaching position from bearing seventy six. The command and control replied. Engage and destroy.

Acknowledged. Mitchell D29 turned his ship onto the bearing that had been give and applied thrust. Query. Enemy numbers?

Squadron strength. The Command and control replied evenly. Mitchell D29 felt a flutter at that. Grineer squadrons were nine ships.

Reinforcements? Mitchell D29 asked. He wouldn't last long against nine enemies alone. He was good, but there were limits. Nine to one was suboptimal. A waste of resources. High command did not care for lives, but they did deplore wasted resources. Mainly the prodigious amounts of credits that went into building, arming and maintaining the fighter.

En-route. The command and control replied. Remainder of squadron will rendezvous.

Query… Mitchell D29 asked before he could stop himself. Casualties?

Continue mission, pilot. With that, the command and control node deactivated.

"Idiot." Mitchell D29 snapped to himself. "You know better."

Higher ups did not like it when their drones, even ones with human additions, started asking questions not mission related. They tended to get…irritated when that happened. And if higher got irritated… well… Mitchell D29 had heard something once that fit. It rolled downhill. Anything that got the higher echelons upset usually had negative consequences for the rank and file, like –say- sending a platoon to charge a base full of Infested alone.

The small fighter sped through the sky of the moon Phobos, every sense the pilot had available fully alert. Since he had been merged with this small craft, he could sense far more than nay puny human could. He barely remembered who he had been before. So… small. So weak. So… limited. Now he could hear solar radiation and taste radio. He could dance through the hurricanes of Jupiter and laugh at the powerful winds that always wracked the gas giant. But his missions almost always centered on places like this. Terraformed worlds with small habitats. His atmospheric fighter was much better in an atmosphere.

"Mitchell D29 , good to see you." The call came just as Mitchell D29 detected three small ships closing from his port side. The voice of Squadron Leader Anne J45 was cool and professional but Mitchell D29 felt his guts lurch. Only three? They had started the fight with seventeen. "Status?"

"Nominal, lead." Mitchell D29 responded. "Two missiles remaining. Full charge on guns." One fifth of his long range capability left. Not so great.

"Damage?" She asked coolly. Not that he expected anything better from the others. The fight had gone on a while.

"Nothing penetrated." Mitchell D29 replied after a quick check of his systems. "Orders?"

"You are the only one with missiles remaining." Anne said quietly and Mitchell D29 swallowed. The fighting had been fierce. "Everyone else has moderate to heavy damage."

"Lead…" Mitchell D29 said and then ordered his ship pharmacopeia to dispense a calming agent. "Orders?" He asked as the calm swept through him. They could do this. They were parts of the machine. Even if they all fell, the machine would continue.

"We will take point, draw their fire." Anne said quietly. She had likely also availed herself of calming agent. Hysterics were pointless and out here likely fatal. Who knew? Some of them might survive this. Doubtful, but possible. "We will try to herd them as close as possible. Hit them with missiles and we will turn and engage any with downed shields."

"Roger that." Mitchell D29 said simply as his screens started to light up. "Incoming."

"We live for the machine." Anne said quietly and three voices answered her.

"We die for the machine." All four of them said as the Grineer detected them and turned to intercept. As reported, nine of the huge Gramash fighters. "Profit numbs the feeling." With that, all four of the Corpus fighters hit their afterburners.

Mitchell D29 gasped in pain as he turned his battered fighter away from the last doomed Grineer ship. Four to nine and they had done it. They had done it! All of his wingmates had fallen, and his ship was falling apart, but every single Grineer ship was downed. His missiles had been expended early and he only had one working gun left, but it was done!

Control… Mitchell D29 said with a wince. Mission accomplished. Requesting retrieval and repair.

Continue mission. The voice of the command and control unit was clear. Mitchell D29 paused.

Mission accomplished, control. Mitchell D29 said, confused. Enemy squadron destroyed. Three casualties. Remaining ship not combat capable.

Continue mission. Enemy squadron bearing sixty four from your position. Engage and destroy. The Control unit paused and then spoke harsher. Now, pilot.

A…Acknowledged… Mitchell D29 managed to say, stammering in his mind. He was being thrown away? There had been rumors that the entire pilot corps was being examined as 'outdated'. But… there were always rumors. Sane people discounted them. Setting course… sixty four… Request resupply of munitions. He nearly begged as he eased his quivering ship onto the new course.

Unavailable. Resupply ship has retreated out of atmosphere along with fleet. The command and control said calmly. Grineer counterattack incoming. Hold them.

Acknowledged, command. Mitchell D29 said softly. Profit numbs the feeling. It…didn't help this time. He cut the neural link and paused as something impossible happened.

"Mitchell D29." The voice was not over the neural link. It was Anne, his squadron leader. But she was dead! Her ship had exploded, no chance of ejecting even if the crappy system actually worked. He had… never seen a Corpus ejections system work as the techs always promised it would. He and the squadron leader had… shared a few good times in between missions before her promotion. He checked and the voice was from a recording. "If you are hearing this, I am dead and you are not. The squadron is being replaced by Raptor drones. The remaining human machine hybrids will be used up in combat." Mitchell D29 slumped, but it wasn't that surprising. "You are the best pilot in the squadron, Mitchell D29. We all knew that. I can't tell you what to do. Our… our masters have abandoned us all. I would like to think it was for a good reason, something to aid the war effort against the Grineer, but it was likely just economics. Cheaper to… Throw lives away than to refit us to some other role. Not that you could have done anything but fly. You are good, Mitchell D29, but a clerk you are not." He could just see her wry grin when he closed his eyes.

"Anne…" Mitchell D29 said softly. "I… I should have taken you up on the offer. Before they promoted you." She had wanted a night with him, he hadn't wanted to harm their friendship. Instead, he had lost it with her promotion. She…hadn't been the same after her promotion. Now he knew why.

"Do not go back to the fleet, Mitchell D29." Anne warned. "They have self-destructs built into the fighters. They are short ranged, but very effective. I… I just… I did love you, Mitchell D29. But after they told me we were being retired… I couldn't say anything. I was under too much scrutiny. We were all supposed to die. If you haven't… then don't. Live, my love. Live for all of us. The Diamondbacks will never die as long as you live."

Taking a squadron name from Earth history hadn't endeared the pilots to high command, but they had proved over and over that esprit de corps made a heck of a force multiplier. The Grineer had nothing to match it. Mitchell D29 felt an overpowering calm descend on him as he saw his screen light up with enemy contacts. Nine Gramash class fighters.

"Nine to one." Mitchell D29 said softly. "Good odds for once." He angled for the surface of Phobos. Head on against nine was suicide, so he had to play this careful. He keyed his com, broadcasting in clear. Grineer would understand his words fine. "Come and get me, you filthy degenerate mutant dogs! Your lines are weak!"

As expected, the insult had all of the Gramash fighters accelerating and turning to match his course. He aimed his ship into a canyon and stayed as low to the ground as he could as fire started to chew up the surface below him. Grineer were a lot of things. Big, strong and tough predominated. Smart was not usually on the list. Mitchell D29 smirked as he maneuvered his A-789 under a large stone archway and no less than three of the Grineer chasing him plowed into the ground, exploding on impact. He pulled up hard as he ran out of canyon and was in clear sky with nowhere to hide from the other Grineer. Hoping and praying that for once, the lousy tech would work, he turned towards one of the large Grineer fighters. His sole plasma cannon flashed and then he hit the control. He expected it not to work, so was stunned when his seat was rocketed clear of the ship just as it came apart under the fire of the other Grineer ships. He smirked again as two of the Grineer ships collided.

Then he was falling towards the dusty surface. Fragments of his ship were all around him and he watched in amazement as the remaining Grineer ships peeled away and started off. None of them so much as shot at him!

"What the hell?" Mitchell D29 had seen a lot since he had been indoctrinated into the Corpus. But this… Then he looked down. The area where he was angling towards was moving. Or lots of things on the surface were moving. It didn't look like Grineer. "Oh…shit…"

Mitchell D29 angled his body, trying to make the wind resistance on his armored space suit work to his advantage. The limited anti-grav system slowed his descent, but no more. It was supposed to allow for a fall of thirty thousand meters, but he knew better than to trust any tech's claims at this point. If he could make it to one of the pinnacles instead of into the large cleared area that he could see was swarming with oddly flat looking forms. Sand skates? He had heard of them and did not relish fighting them. One on one, he might be able to handle if the charge in his Cestra held out. The hundreds he could see? He would be swallowed up whole and never seen again. He was struggling, trying to spread himself out further as he…

Something huge appeared beneath him and he had only a moment to stare at it before he slammed into the white hull. He screamed in pain as something went snap, but then he was skidding across a featureless expanse of odd metal, falling, sliding… He grabbed at anything he could, but his gloved fingers could find no purchase and he slid off, screaming again… to land with a thump on the top of one of the promontories. He lay for a moment, panting. Then he rolled over and stared up at… the Tenno spacecraft.

"What the hell?" Mitchell D29 asked the empty air as the Tenno ship hovered in mid-air. Was it about to drop a Betrayer to find him and end him? Or worse? He had heard stories, like all the Corpus troops, of what the Betrayers did to people they captured. The ship didn't move. Anger rose inside Mitchell D29 and he opened his visor and shouted. "If you are going to kill me, just do it!"

Then… he froze as the small ship slowly turned vertical and an opening appeared on the underside. A small opening, just the right size for a… He skittered back as a warframe appeared in the human shaped hole and then jumped down from the ship to land near him. Mitchell D29 stared at the warframe, he wasn't really up on any of the Betrayer's designs, so he had no idea what kind it was. His Cestra was up, for all the good it would do him. He was no ground fighter. He knew how to shoot of course, but actually facing one of the Tenno? This wasn't anything he was trained for. His fighting had always been ship to ship. The Tenno just looked at him.

"What?" Mitchell D29 demanded. "What do you want, Betrayer?" He demanded, his pistol ready. The Tenno slowly bent down and wrote something in the dust at it's feet. It was in the Corpus alphabet.

'Good flying'

Mitchell D29 stared at the writing and then at the Tenno.

"What do you want?" He demanded, fear beginning to rise again. The Tenno made an odd gesture, it's right hand came up. Palm down, the hand angled until the very tips of the fingers nearly touched the armored forehead. Something tickled Mitchell D29's memory. That was a salute. It stood there, waiting.

Finally, Mitchell D29 returned the gesture. It felt… oddly right. He jerked as the Tenno stepped backwards. He had been so focused on the Tenno that he hadn't realized that the ship had lowered. The Tenno stepped into the odd alcove on it's ship and then the ship arced away. Silent and faster than thought, before Mitchell D29 could even think of what to say, if anything, it was gone.

"Holy crap." Mitchell D29 sagged as he realized that he wasn't going to die. At least, not from the Tenno. If the Grineer found him, he would likely wind up a greasy splatter on a floor somewhere. He sighed and started pulling pieces of his small survival kit out. He might be here a while, but he wasn't going to give up. He was Corpus. He served the Corpus and it served him, even if they had thrown him away, he was still Corpus.

Wasn't he?

Suddenly… He wasn't as sure of that as he had been when he climbed into the cockpit this morning.