"Quaritch is gonna take out the Well of Souls! He's got a clear shot. Hit him, anybody that can! Do it now!" Jake says into his headset.
In her Samson Trudy Chacon is all business.
"On it."
She banks hard, pulling g's, coming around on the Dragon. She pours on the coal and the Samson leaps forward, straight at the warship.
Quaritch, drills a stream of tracers at her, tearing her canopy, ripping chunks off her fuselage.
In the jungle below, Norm watches her kamikaze run…
"No!" he screams.
"Norm, I love you," Trudy says in a clipped, pilot-like manner.
Trudy dives, raking through treetops and then, at the last instant, yanks back on the stick and the Samson leaps straight up and…
K-KRASH!
Shears off the cockpit of the Dragon ass Quaritch throws himself aft along the aisle and Trudy's Samson disintegrates, the wreckage burning as it tumbles into the jungle.
Miles Quaritch grips the bulkhead as he stares out the open front of the fuselage. Wind howls through wreckage where the pilot used to be. The forest rushes up to meet him and the Dragon crashes through splintering trees, impacting in a lake with a white blast of water…
It's the rainforest – day.
Norm takes a few steps and drops to his knees. Imploded by grief.