Free Star Force: Initiation (SF61) by Aer-ki Jyr

distance, but they
weren’t behind, rather ahead and lateral giving them opportunities for
intercept unless she could get clear and up to speed…which didn’t look likely.
The more momentum she built the faster she would go, but without her shields
cutting the wind her aerodynamics were limited. That combined with the power
drain was going to make this dicey.
    She wasn’t going to call for help though, because that
meant a skeet or two would have to leave the ground troops hanging and she
wasn’t going to have that. If necessary she could crash land and get picked up
later, knowing that her pilot’s cocoon would make it very hard for the lizards to
kill her even if they finished off her skeet.
    Still mentally cursing herself for running into one of
them, she test fired the maulers to make sure they were actually still
functional. Both fired off normally and their recharge rate was diminished but
present, so she could fight a bit if she had to…and it looked like that was
going to be necessary.
    Krissy counted 13 wisps in total that had broken off
from various formations and were chasing her. They weren’t all together, nor
would they reach her at the same time, with her seeing that she was in fact
going to have to deal with at least 6 of them if she stayed on her present
course, and the moment she went evasive the others would then have a chance to
catch up from the lead she’d built on them.
    She had about 10 more seconds to make a decision
before the first wisp got within firing range and Krissy realized she didn’t
have a choice. She waited a few more heartbeats then spun the skeet around,
facing back and to port she hit the brakes and brought herself even closer to
the nearest wisp. She wished she had her scattergun, for even a few small hits
would be enough to hurt the shieldless enemy, but
she’d have to make do with her maulers. They required more skill to hit with,
but Krissy wasn’t lacking in that department.
    The wisp did go evasive, however, making her first
five shots miss, but as she turned her skeet to follow its line of flight she
caught a hit with the sixth, then punched what acceleration she had to move
away from it as two more came in. A heartbeat later her shields began to reform
at low strength but she didn’t wait to try and let them rebuild, knowing that
she had to make these kills quick while there were only one or two wisps
nearby. Wait and let them bunch up and she’d be down before she had time to
properly cuss them out.
    Moving into an aggressive evasion pattern that had her
cutting back on her flight path as often as she could, she set herself to the
task of using her superior skill to overcome the disadvantage…or at least take
a few more of the bastards down before she was out of the fight.

 
    An hour and a half later one of the Star Force surface
bases saw a smoking skeet approach from the west and set down in the middle of
one of the open landing pads as if there was nothing at all wrong or unusual
about it. There were no calls for emergency assistance or any alarm in the
pilots voice as she signaled for pad allotment, but once seeing the state of
her ship the deck chief got an emergency crew of techs rushing out to the skeet
to deal with any potential mechanical explosions that might result from the
damage and endanger the surrounding ships/personnel…as well as to see to the
pilot.
    But when Krissy landed she popped the armored hatch
and slid down the angled side of the skeet, for its port landing leg had never
deployed. Her light combat suit protected her leg and elbow from the heat on
the hull as she dropped to the ground and casually walked off, satisfied and
relieved that she hadn’t been stuck in the forest.
    The pilot waved off the medtech in the emergency team
and let them deal with her wreck of a skeet as she headed indoors to find out
the status of the ongoing battles and how long it would take to get her a
replacement fighter.

 
 
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    Niken-401229