From the
ground, the celestial heavens had been untouched for weeks. No unnatural object
had traversed the gulfs of the blackness that lay above. That is, until today. A single, solitary orange star began to form
on the horizon. It grew brighter as it rocketed its way westward. As it sped
across the sky, it left a brilliant trail of charged ions in its wake. Perhaps it was another meteor—the Perseids
were due in about this time of year.
But that idea would soon vanish as the orange star continued its east-to-west
journey and did not make any attempt to change its orbit. That meant only one thing: it had to be a
ship.
The Black Boa raced across
the ionosphere. Its engines were
pumping hard as they disgorged their burning plasma behind them. Fusion generators were blinking their
warning statuses as the ship was commanded to accelerate faster. Physiological monitors were warning Aki that
she was already in G-LOC levels and that she was in serious danger of blacking
out. Color was something that she could
no longer see. Tunnel vision gave her a pencil-thin view of her cockpit and
surrounding objects. Holographics and
alarms continued to blink and shrill their warnings.
She desperately had to get away.
Colonel
Hein was a little less-than-impressed with her failure to stay out of
USMF-designated military airspace. The
ground campaign was still hot and it was not going well for them. Hein had sent up a pair of bulldogs
to chase her away after she had landed and was on the ground for twenty
minutes. But she had successfully
retrieved the spirit that she had been looking for.
The attack
craft were barreling up behind her and were accelerating at nearly 6.5
gees. Aki wondered how the pilots in
those ships could still remain conscious, but then it dawned on her that USFM
fighter pilots were some of the best pilots the world had ever seen. They were hand picked and put through a
near-torturous training program that could teach their bodies to withstand the
most punishing of accelerations.
Accelerations far beyond what normal people would ever be expected to
withstand during their lifetime.
What
worried Aki the most wasn't the speed at which the craft were gaining on her;
it was the fact that she was rapidly approaching their weapons range. Even though the craft specialized in
bioetheric weaponry, they still had a very capable suite of conventional lasers
to destroy offending targets. And a
single solitary strike from their lasers would be able to reduce her ship into
a spray of hot metal tumbling through the atmosphere, she did not want to call
their bluff.
The Black
Boa surged onward towards New York half a world away—the sun was starting
to creep over the terminator. Blinding
yellow and white light soon filled the cockpit of Aki's ship as the acceleration
reached 5 gees. The ship was starting
to convulse and creak loudly as it groaned under its incredible weight. Aki's vision had now been reduced to spots
and shapes, but she could still make out where everything was in the
cockpit. She forced her lead fingers to
type commands to the ship. Can't be
much longer, she thought to herself.
Behind her
the sleek fighters had begun to look like comets as radiant plasma began to
buffet their hulls. They opened up
their weapons pods. Aki received a transmission—it
was text only, but she didn't have to guess as to what its contents were. "This is your final warning. If you re-enter USMF-designated military
airspace, you craft will be destroyed. Do not attempt to turn
around." Clear enough, Aki thought
and sent her acknowledgement
The bulldogs responded by
spitting up and curving in a sharp "U" back towards where they had came. Aki didn't even want to begin to think about
the stresses going on inside those ships at that moment. But at least she had managed to evade
certain destruction yet another day.
Aki instructed the ship to begin to decelerate.
New York was now on the horizon
and she patched in flight control at the barrier city to request docking
authorization. Normally she would have
tried to speak, but her jaws and whole body were absolutely on fire from the
terrible gravity she had just been through.
Blood started to return to her empty retinas and her vision slowly
started to return. She would
undoubtedly need a few days to rest, and probably even longer before the aches
in her bones would go away.
Aki's worn muscles managed a tired smile as she took
silent comfort in the fact that she had accomplished her mission and retrieved
yet another spirit. She hoped and
prayed that the next ones would not be as difficult or as adventurous to
obtain.
