Chapter 6

The interior lights of the controls lit up visor as the lights on my helmet lit up my face. One thing a pilot could never complain about was whether it was dark in the cockpit! Then the call came through our intercoms to launch. I think that took my breath away more than the G-forces that shoved me back into my seat as my fighter hurtled out of the launch tube. Still, I welcomed the familiar sensation of sudden force and then near weightlessness as my fighter cleared the tube. I couldn't help the smile that crept across my lips as I adjusted my heading and met up with the rest of the defense force.

There was virtually no time for reverie because we flew into a hornet's nest of fighting. Tracers, explosions and vapor trails lit up space like some kind of action movie. In fact, the only time I'd ever seen anything like it was in the movies. There were so many Cylon Raiders in the sky I could probably walk on them back to Galactica. I took a deep breath and steeled myself for contact.

For some strange reason, when the Cylon raiders saw us, they paused for an instant; the pulsing light on the front of their ships stopped as if trying to hypnotize us or something. I figured that's how they corrupted the network of the Mark VIIs of Red Squadron. The command went out for "weapons free" and we all eagerly obeyed. We released our safeties and ripped into the Cylons! If machines could feel surprise then I'm sure they were beyond baffled.

All of us whooped as our shots found a home in our enemy's hulls. Cylon ships exploded and sprayed shrapnel all over space. I blew up one coming at me head on and swerved at the last minute to avoid the resulting explosion. "Yeah! Get some! That's for Libran you sons of bitches!" I shouted as I racked up my tally to three raiders in under one minute. It felt good to be killing Cylons as savage as that sounds. All the stress and frustration and rage I was carrying around disappeared in a rush.

We were finally starting to turn the tide. I don't think the Cylons expected us to fight as hard as we did but we were enraged. It wasn't so much we had a reason to fight or to win; we had a reason to destroy the Cylons. As much ass we were kicking, the Cylons gave as good as they got. Beside me, a viper exploded in a bright flash. I didn't even know the guy's name but I knew that it could easily be me that exploded next. It's not something a pilot likes to think about but that was reality.

After ten minutes, we were really feeling confident, maybe too confident. When I glanced at the Galactica, some of that confidence dissipated. There were fires all throughout the ship from the multiple hits it took and we still hadn't pulled all the raiders off their attack runs on the ship yet. "Galactica-Actual, this is Spriggan. You've got fires on your port side and they're burning really bad!" I radioed.

"Spriggan this is Actual, get those fighters off us! Do what you can!"

"Copy that!" I banked my ship and headed back toward the Galactica. Because the raiders were so hellbent on destroying our ship, they never saw me coming out of the sky like a rage-fueled avenging angel. I picked off two raiders easily that were on a strafing run and having their way with my mothership. Two more came over my gunsights and I blew them to pieces just as easily. Gods, I loved the element of surprise!

"Galactica-Actual this is Spriggan, I think I've got you cleared. Getting back into the fight now." I said as I climbed back into the raging dogfight. As I climbed, a raider streaked down toward me. "Oh you wanna play? C'mon then you motherfracker, let's play!" I depressed the trigger for all I was worth just as the raider was doing the same. I destroyed him but some of his shots hit home as well. "Yow!" I screamed as an instrument panel blew up in a shower of sparks. My viper shuddered from the hits and alarms started blaring everywhere.

"Frack!" I shouted, trying to make heads or tails of what just happened. According to what I could determine, my ship wouldn't explode and I was still airworthy. "Galactica-Actual, Spriggan, I took some hits but I think I'm alright" I said over the intercom. I was greeted by dead silence; the sound of static would've been welcoming but there wasn't even that, just dead air. "Frack, my comms must've been shot out." I muttered.

With no communications, I'd have to rely on visual cues. With the chaos going on in the skies, that was next to impossible. Common sense told me to land my plane and go for repairs or get a new plane if possible but I decided that I couldn't leave my friends. I continued to climb back into the fight.

I thought I was something special in the air but Starbuck was kicking major ass. Her flying style had always been so distinctive that I could pick her out of a thousand vipers that looked just like hers. She shot up three Cylons with ridiculous ease. "Man she's awesome" I whispered to myself. I chuckled, not believing that I was acting like a love-sick puppy in the middle of a battle! "Get your head back in it Miles" I said.

Suddenly, Starbuck broke off from an attack run on a raider and started chasing down two missiles. I wondered why she was doing that when I saw her tracers connect with one of the missiles. The projectile exploded with a huge white flash that lit up space like daybreak back home on Libran. Nukes, the godsdamned toasters were using nukes! And since almost all of the raiders were carrying some sort of ordinance, it was nearly impossible to know which raiders were carrying nukes and which weren't. I knew it couldn't have been all of them because we'd blown up with each raider we killed.

A raider distracted me, narrowly missing my ship with his tracers. I banked hard-left to avoid being shot up a second time. Doing that however, put the raider right on my tail. "I need help, I got a raider on my tail!" I shouted, forgetting that my comms were trashed. "Gonna have to do it myself then!" With a grunt, I hit the reverse thrust on my boosters, arresting my momentum and hurtling me backward.

The sudden change in inertia slammed me against my restraining harnesses and back into the seat with a grunt of pain. Stars that didn't belong to the galaxy swam across my eyes for an instant but then disappeared. "Take this you bastard!" I shouted as I squeezed the trigger. The Cylon exploded, adding another to my tally. I let out another whoop, seeing that I was on my way to becoming an ace in my first battle!

Smiling, I looked around me and the sky was preternaturally clear. I knew that couldn't be right however and I looked at my DRADIS screen. Sure enough, my personal dogfight had gotten me separated from the rest of my friends. I turned my ship and headed back to them at full throttle.

I came upon the group and it looked like the battle was finally thinning out; there were way less raiders in the air before and it looked like they were going to beat a retreat. Unfortunately that didn't apply to all of them. I saw Starbuck chasing yet another missile which was likely a nuke, so I figured I'd go and help her; I was lateral to her position.

Unbeknownst to her, a raider was coming on an intercept course that she either didn't see or she was ignoring and she was too good a pilot to ignore something like that. Most likely the raider was in her blind spot. "Starbuck, you've got a toaster coming at you!" I screamed. Again, I forgot that my comms were shot out so there was no way she could hear me. I boosted toward the raider on the intercept course and fired. My rounds hit the raider and exploded the Cylon. Unfortunately, his shots hit my fighter as well.

Bullets ripped through my ship, destroying my engines and avionics. I was "dead in the water" as it were and had no control over my ship. With no power to arrest my momentum, I was hurtling pell-mell toward the Galactica. Doubly unfortunate for me was that I was also in the path of the nuke which was getting ever closer to our base. I saw Kara fire and like the great marksman she was, her shots hit home.

"Kara…" I whispered as the nuke exploded…right in front of me. It's true what they say about your whole life flashing right before your eyes at the moment of your death. I instantly relived my entire life and saw the parts where I could've done a better job, tried harder, been faster, smarter or whatever. Most of all though, was Kara's face. The girl who I loved so much but didn't feel the same.

The kicker was that I had a vision of Kara and I on a beach kissing. I could feel her soft skin, the brush of her hair on my face. I could smell her sweet scent and taste her on my lips.

"I love you Miles." she whispered in my ear.

I smiled widely as I gripped her hands tightly. "I love you too Kara!"

The vision was suddenly gone. "Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf" I started to sing quietly. There was a flash of white, a momentary searing of heat and then…nothing.