Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The minute that siren sounded all hell broke loose. Hordes of sleepy, unshaven and half dressed pilots stumbled out into the hall, adding to the confusion. Even the cooks were running about, the sounds of multiple avalanches of pots and pans rang out as they scrambled for shelter.

My instincts soon kicked in and I headed for my ship like everyone else. Hopefully the techs would have it ready. When I stepped outside the reason for the sirens became apparent. The sky was swarming with enemy fighters, and what looked like bombers as well.

Once I reached my ship, dodging random enemy fire I didn't even bother put my flight suit on, no time.

"Highwind!" yelled a nearby tech, who threw me my flight goggles.

As I looked closer I realized it was Shera, the woman I'd just had breakfast with. But pleasantries could wait till later, right now there was some fighting to do. So I clambered up a ladder and plopped into my cockpit. I didn't even bother run all the preflight checks; I was needed in the air.

But when I took off I immediately regretted my decision to get up in the air quickly. There were no other Shinra fighters up in the sky, just me. So the enemy swarmed all over me. Just like flies on a melting ice cream cone in the middle of the sidewalk. What the enemy didn't know though was that unlike the ice cream cone, I wasn't going to just let them peck away at me. I wasn't going down without a fight.

And hopefully I wouldn't be going down at all.

The first wave came in a group of three, pretty unfair odds…for them that is. A quick squeeze of the trigger turned one of 'em into debris and shook up his buddies a little bit. But suddenly I found a better proposition. A friendly fighter and supply shuttle were engaged in a heavy fight with at least ten enemy fighters. It looked like they needed more attention than my two newfound pals over here, so I pulled up and shot over to the main fight. Time to even up the odds a little.

"Shinra fighters this is Eclipse Eleven, identify yourselves," I said over the radio.

No response.

I repeated the phrase again, still no response. Hmm, their radios must be down. Nevertheless they needed help and I was going to give them some. For a few seconds I had the element of surprise in my favor, and that was good enough to narrow the count down to two less fighters. Leaving it eight against three.

Suddenly a scream rang out over the radio and the supply shuttle burst into a fireball. Damn it.

So it was just down to me and the other guy. Against eight enemy fighters, four to one, not bad. Bullshit, even I'm a tad nervous now. I was brought back to reality when a blast shook my fighter. Shit.

Get your head back in the game Cid.

I pulled a roll to the left and saw the sky light up with enemy fire where I'd just been. That was a close one, too close. As I pulled out of the roll an enemy fighter came into my sights for only a split second, but that was all it took for me to blow him into a thousand pieces.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something on the ground explode in a bright flash of light. Time to deal with those bombers. I saw that the other friendly fighter was trying to do the same, but had two fighters on his tail. And before I could make it over to give him a hand he'd dealt with the fighters himself.

While I watched in awe my comrade stopped dead in the air and let the two enemy fighters fly right over him, and then turned them both into dust. Holy shit, the guy had just pulled a Mako Stall. If you weren't careful those things could blow out your engine and drop your fighter to the ground like a stone.

But this guy had just pulled one off while vaping two enemies, and I bet I wasn't the only one who was impressed, the enemy included. Suddenly I was trapped. All five remaining enemy fighters from the wing that'd been harassing my fellow friendly fighters and the combat shuttle were swarming on me hard.

Luckily a welcome voice broke over the radio, my commander Nairne. I never thought I'd be glad to see that guy. But at this point, hell I'd even be glad to see a chocobo up flyin' one of these things, as long as it was on my side.

"Need a little help lieutenant?" asked Nairne, with a tone of mockery in his voice.

"Nah, we're making out fine here. But if you wanna chalk up a few more kills in your record then be my guest." I said, relieved.

Without another word Eclipse decimated the remaining four fighters, giving me a chance to actually take a full breath of air since I took off. Once I was fairly safe, I led my wing from Eclipse to do some hunting. There were still plenty of bombers out and about to be mopped up. We obliterated all other enemy fighters in less than five minutes, with no losses from Eclipse. I even managed to get another little Wutaian dork in the process.

Before I landed I looked around to make sure the unknown pilot who'd pulled the stall was still around. I definitely wanted to meet that guy.

****

Soon after I landed, I got the deal on what had happened from the head Eclipse tech. Apparently to get some revenge for what we did at their outpost a few days ago the Wutaians had decided to launch a sneak attack on our fighter base. Which would have worked pretty good, except our radar had picked them up a mile away.

How the hell they even knew where our base was located posed an interesting question, but that would have to be answered later. Right now we had to pick up the pieces. Even though we'd spotted them on radar, most pilots had been asleep, so we'd taken a while to get into the air. And while most pilots had been struggling to wake up, the Wutaians had had plenty of time to wreak havoc on our base.

The entire administrative wing had been reduced to rubble, and no one had been inside, so all that was lost were some old chairs and desks. As for pilot losses, the most had occurred on the ground. Where people had been scrambling to get up in the air but had been too good of a target for the bombers to resist. We'd lost four or five that way. And as for up in the air there'd only been one Shinra casualty, a rookie from Phoenix squad.

And of course the Wutaians had almost all been killed, although a few had escaped before they suffered the same fate as their friends.

So we'd recover fairly quickly from this, but there'd be a lot of putting the pieces back together first. But before I did any of that I wanted to find that unknown hotshot pilot who'd been up there with us.

I looked for the odd green stripes on the wings of the fighters. Our unknown maverick friend had those on his or her fighter. As if reading my thoughts the fighter popped up right in front of me. And amazingly the pilot was still in the cockpit, shutting off the fighter. Once he was done he began to get out, but I startled him.

As he turned around I saw he was tall and lanky with unkempt chocolate brown hair, his eyes shone in the same color. He had to be only 17 or 18, but his tanned leathery face suggested many more years.

"Hey!" I shouted.

"What?! And who are you?" the man said as he jumped, startled.

"Just wanted to know who the hell you were; that stall you pulled up there was really somethin'."

"Well, I am a pretty good pilot, I s'pose, now that you mention it…" he said with a mischievous grin which grew larger as he spoke again. "But you still haven't answered my other question, who the hell are you? And please don't give me the 'adoring fan' bit, it gets old," he said as he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and began chewing on it lazily.

I had all I could do to keep myself from punching that sly little prick right in the mug. But of course officers didn't do things like that.

"I'm Lieutenant Cid Highwind. Now would you mind telling me who the fuck you are before I beat the pulp out of you and use the dental records to identify your body?"

At that the cocky pilot took a step back, although it was tough 'cause he was still standing on top of his fighter.

"Lieutenant Highwind? Oh shit. Flight Officer Azrael Maiden reporting for duty. I was sent to fill the empty slot in your wing." He said with a salute, "And I was just jokin' 'bout that adoring fan bit ya know I mean…"

A glare from me cut him off.

Damn it the spot he was filling was Lennie's. Something I still hadn't quite come to terms with. Christ what the hell am I talking about? I'm not some kind of pansy. Damn it Highwind get a hold of yourself.

"All right, get your shit in the barracks, and then help with the cleanup."

Once the little dork had hopped down off his fighter and jogged off to the barracks I stared up into the sky, and let out a long sigh. This was gonna be one long freaking war.

Note- Alright that's taken me a while to get posted, but thanks to the help of Kiyara it is finally here. And speaking of Kiyara, as some of you may have noticed the character Azrael Maiden is hers, from her story Catching Glimpses. I have permission to use him in my stories, but unless you ask her you do not, righto now that's settled. Lastly please do check out the collaborative work Chasing Sirens, which is posted under the name "The Skilled Assassins" we hope to change that soon. So if we do I'll inform you in my next chapter of this. It is a story focusing on the pasts of Reno and Rude, and how they came together. I've written the 1st chapter, and Kiyara should the 2nd chapter up very soon, we also have many other talented writers on tap to help us out with the writing. If you'd like to write a chapter of the story please contact me, my info stuff is on my profile page thingy majig.

Adios!