She didn't know what to say but "No."
"What was that, Khoury?"
"No! Just…" She shook her head. "I had so many… myths, in my head, about you." She didn't have the time or energy for tears, watching her mentor's jet close in on her. "I guess I really did think you were the good guy, in all those stories of yours. But now I can see the truth you always forgot to tell me."
"Then go ahead, IRIS." The Peacekeeper grit his teeth. "Speak your truth."
"You're not the hero or the villain," she said, watching the HMD's reticle paint a diamond over her mentor's plane. "You're just a man who's been suffering for so long that it's driven him insane."
He snarled. "Of course you'd think that. Of course, you, the spineless traitor… would think that valuing the greater good of the world over your personal comfort would be insane."
He's right, she thought, not knowing whether to cry or to scream. One of us has to die here.
Under the split-open skies, it was a rather pretty place to die, in a twisted corruption of beauty. The world had become a medley of colors, swirling and fading into each other, yet somehow distinctly demarcated; on one side lay the blue-white tones of merciful, infinite, hopeful heaven; on the other, the red-orange of vengeful, suffocating, wrathful hell. Reality mixed with nightmare under a thin, swirling purple band where she now clashed swords with her mentor, those skies full of conflicted confusion and agonized frustration. Under that thin line between life and death, even nature seemed unable to reconcile the harsh truth of the moment to the world that had existed barely minutes ago.
She fought the urge to think deeper, to make sense of it all, punched the CAGE/UNCAGE switch, and the missile's seeker slew its heat-vision glare to her mentor's engines. Let's give this another shot…
He can't do that again, right? The missile's ravenous, hungry bark pitched up into a shrill whine, and she pulled the trigger with a silent prayer. Please don't let him do that again.
Her eyes locked on the grey-and-black Eagle, she knew the next few seconds would decide if survival was on the table. He can either break, like a sane pilot, like a pilot I have a chance in hell at shooting down…
Or, she felt a more visceral terror build as she watched his plane remain, unwavering, totally committed. He could swat it down again and again and all I can do against him is guns.
Two missiles peeled off their rails on the Agile Eagle, and she cut the engines instinctively, going defensive. Her missile was cut short, and her hope went with it.
What the hell do I do? Her breath quickened. This wasn't standard procedure anywhere. There was no playbook for this. No training, no contingency.
"What a shame," the ace said, his greatest student's hyperventilating panic audible over the crackling radio. "You know, you used to learn so quickly."
Learn. Learn. She watched the missile shoot by and trained her gaze on it. Will it even pick up the exhaust? It was probably easier now that the missile had missed her, off chasing the flares she had dumped in her wake. It's gotta be a really narrow window…
She watched the helmet display's cursor circle the missile, doing her best to keep the seeker steady on the rocket motor, a task it was most certainly never designed to do as she uncaged the fifth Sidewinder and let its howl reach its peak before her ragged breath returned to an even pace. Okay, so that's possible. It works.
She brought the plane around and prayed her little distraction hadn't killed her — and it hadn't. Not yet, anyways — but the warningless smoke trail of a heat-seeking missile was coming for her, right off her nose, fired doubtlessly in the time she had taken to practice the technique that would either save her or kill her.
All or nothing, she thought, heart pounding as she brought her gaze to the missile. Bee-beep, the heater replied. Bee-beep. The missile didn't have enough contrast — it knew something was there, but no lock. Her breath quickened. Dammit, get a track!
The oncoming missile was too close to dodge, too fast to avoid — split seconds were all she had.
The seeker buzzed steady, and she pulled the trigger. Not a moment sooner, the world ahead was obscured in a shower of smoke. She shoved the stick into a roll, pulling her nose onto his plane.
"I take it back," She had never heard such a mix of condescension, fury, and pride. "You still are a wonderful student."
She took a breath, terrified. "I… I had a good teacher." Can I… do that again?
"If only you had listened to him." A tinge of regret entered the ace's brewing storm of emotion.
I don't know if I can do that again.
Amber lightning crashed around the two planes as they turned for each other, neither pilot wanting to lose sight of the other's missile rails. Wanting to keep their Sidewinders' seeker heads pointed where they would need to be if the other fired. She couldn't quite get an accurate estimate of how many missiles still hung from the undercarriage and wings of the Eagle, but she could tell it was more than her five — and I still have my gun topped up, she thought. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Memories taunted her. The Peacekeeper had helped her when everyone else in her life had seen her as just another kid from the Periphery. He had fueled her now-discarded dream, and she wondered what her younger self would think of her now — trying to kill the man who had given her a path to everything she had ever wanted.
The clap of thunder and a bolt of fiery light from the heavens woke her from her illusion. He wanted this. He's okay with gazed at where that rising star in the distance had been, hanging opposite the afternoon sun— the star that had once been a city, a city far larger than any she had ever seen, one who myriad people had called home, had called Presidia— and remembered who had wrought such wanton devastation as the light of the second sun had faded into the sickening, infernal glow of a new Exclusion Zone.
For that, she couldn't forgive him.