Chapter 10

"Missile vets, to the left!" came an anguished cry through Stevie's radio. "They've opened fire!"Stevie dropped a few meters and now he could see several bright lights were arcing through the air toward his team."Alright." he said calmly into his microphone. "Evasive action! Draw their fire, but avoid being hit at all costs!" A few murmurs of agreement came through his headset. "What was that?!" Stevie roared. "Are you soldiers or not, people? Let's hear you!""HOO-RAH!" yelled his team, and then he heard Natalie emit a high pitched, feral war-cry. For the third time that day, the young pilot made him smile.Stevie piloted his plane in a wide arc toward the missiles, hoping to draw them away from the less experienced pilots. As he circled around, his radio again crackled to life. This time, the transmission was clear as a bell.Stevie's eyes widened as Mattimeo emitted his cry for help. Unfortunately, his battalion was made up of only fighters. He could radio back to base for copter support, but by the time the chopper arrived the advancing enemy troops would be upon Mattimeo. There was but one thing left to do.Stevie would have to pick Mattimeo up himself in his fighter. If Mattimeo was not claustrophobic, he might be able to squeeze into the cockpit.It took only a split second before Stevie made his decision. He had to rescue the brave, lone warrior. He radioed those pilots under his command, ordering them to distract the enemy for as long as possible. Then he turned back to the direction from which he had just come.As Stevie came closer to the massive wreck, he gasped. A twisted mound of blackened metal casing lay half buried in the soft sand. Debris lay strewn in a long line behind the wrecked aircraft and a fire was actively consuming the remains. how could anyone have survived that? nevertheless, Stevie spotted a lone figure waving up at him.His engines powered by powerful plasma energy, Stevie smoothly maneuvered his plane next to Mattimeo. "Need a lift?" shouted Stevie as his comrade came towards him. "A lift would be superb!" Mattimeo replied, hoisting himself up onto the plane by means of grabbing the elevators, "So I'm supposed to crunch into the cockpit?" Mattimeo looked dismayed, "Well, I suppose it's better than just standing here!" He crawled into the cockpit and lay, cramped, behind the seat."Where are we headed?" He asked Stevie quizzically; the only thing they could really do would be to drop him off at the nearest base. He didn't have an oxygen mask and the cockpit wasn't pressurized. On the other hand, they couldn't just leave the rest of Skylark Squadron to fend for themselves. Most of them were new and had never been in a real battle situation. Waiting for liftoff, Mattimeo braced himself for the feeling of flying. He didn't like it at first, but once they were in the air, he'd be fine.But he had just one more question; this one he asked himself, Where is the rest of Olympus Squadron? The last I saw of them, they got off the Indefatigable by T-Copter...

Stevie pushed the throttle and felt the plane slowly rise into the air. Mattimeo voiced his concern about the oxygen mask, but Stevie silently reached into a small compartment on the floor."I always have a plan, my friend" he said as he pulled out a spare mask. With shaking hands, Mattimeo secured the device around his face."All right..." said Stevie. "Now, hold on!" And with that, he hit the thrusters.Mattimeo's face turned an unpleasant shade of green as the sleek jet sped towards the nearby air base, but plasma makes for a smooth ride and the plane was hardly affected by turbulence. In fact, Stevie suspected that Mattimeo started to quite enjoy himself.Suddenly, Stevie slowed the plane down drastically. Out of the corner of his eye he had spotted a glint of gold. He slowly pulled his plane around in a wide arc, and as they got closer, he heard Mattimeo gasp.It was a downed T-Copter! Around it were spread several Solar troops. Many were lying on the ground. Many of those weren't moving. As they touched down, Mattimeo jumped out of the cockpit before the engines had even cooled down. As Stevie climbed out, he saw several Sol soldiers running towards them. He suspected that this was the remainder of Mattimeo's original company... Mattimeo dashed towards the remaining soldiers. Turning to a Corporal-Ranked Mortar Veteran, he started questioning him, "What happened, Corporal? The last I saw you escaped from the airship!""Well, sir," the Mortar Veteran replied, "We were just getting off the airship after you took out the engine room when we noticed you were missing! We were about to tell the pilot to turn around when we just started dropping! We crashed here. Only a few of us made it out."Mattimeo ran past with a quick, "O.K." and went to inspect the troops. The only ones that had survived the crash were 2 Rifle Grunts, a Plasma Vet, and the Mortar Vet he had spoken to. He asked the other 3 soldiers about what had happened: they all gave the same answer as the Mortar Veteran.Walking back to Stevie, Mattimeo quickly asked the obvious question, "How are we going to get these troops out of here? No way in hell are they all gonna fit in the plane. We'll need to get copter support, and then we need to heal the wounded!" He spoke of the Plasma Vet and one of the Rifle Grunts. "They don't have that kind of medical facilities at an airbase..." The Plasma Veteran had a badly broken leg and the Rifle Grunt was bleeding from a deep gash in his side. Considering his possibilities, Mattimeo came to a conclusion: They had to go back to the Indefatigable."Look, if we go back to the airship, they'll have a medical facility SOMEWHERE in that thing. It was a fully-functional fortress, so they ought to have the medical room well-protected." He argued to Stevie and his men, "We can radio in for a copter to pick us up and drop us off there."Mattimeo knew that they would most likely encounter resistance at the crash site, but it was their only real chance. If they didn't go, the Rifle Grunt would soon die from loss of blood and the Plasma Vet might never be able to walk again."I just hope this works."