Jazz: Monster Collector In: Dogfight (Season 1 Episode 14), Page 2
RyFT Brand
turned. They were being more careful now, letting me get close before firing.
“Ahhh!” Ship sounded nervous. All was right with the world again.
I fired both cannons. The big, osriilium balls smashed two perfectly round holes though the point stub-wing’s hull. Black smoke poured out of the dropping flycraft. I’d breached his missile tubes setting raw plasma loose in the hull. The thick smoke forced his tailing flycraft up and away.
Shoving the sticks forward and pushing the flight pedals down, I drove Ship into a steep decent. I veered to starboard to avoid the crashing Connor. “Bye-bye, jerk-ass.”
“Oh very clever, milady, you’re so smart. Except that you seem to have forgotten that we’re on fire!”
“Call me that again and milady will shove a chili pepper bomb up your aft thruster port. And no, I didn’t forget.” I’d led my adversaries over the greater lake because I didn’t want fallout from the dogfight damaging anyone important to me. Now I saw another advantage. I leveled us off at the water surface, then flipped Ship upside-down.
“What are you doing? I can’t see the Cranks like this; my sensors are too close to the water.”
“Time for a bath, stinky.” Upside-down wasn’t my best attitude. I constantly had to remind myself to reverse my control reactions, up was now down and vise-versa. I got us dropping, meaning I had to move the controls like I wanted to go up, until Ship’s tail, and subsequently the top of the canopy, was dragging though the water. Keeping Ship from dropping under was a struggle, especially because the denser than air water had taken the shake and built it into a full fledged wobble, and the wobble hurt my broken ribs so badly my eyes were watering. “What’s the tail surface temperature?”
“Oh I don’t know; you’re shaking me to pieces. I can’t read anything, but I’ll bet those Cranks are close and you’ve got my soft white underbelly exposed!”
“Good point,” I said and rolled us upright as high caliber bullets rained down on the water and pinged off Ship’s thick hide. I flinched from the torrent of noise.
“They’re right behind us!” Ship yelled.
“Good,” I said. “Flip thrust output on my mark.”
“What! We can’t reverse; we’d smash into them.”
“On my mark!” I shouted. The pain in my throat pushed out tears that ran down my face.
Still skimming the lake’s surface, I pulled the flight pedals to neutral and pushed one yoke forward and pulled the other back. “Mark!”
With my skill and the aid of the inertia nullifier, I spun my flycraft one-hundred and eighty degrees within the distance of his short wing span. As I did Ship flipped his thruster output and we were racing across the lake backwards.
“Hey!” Ship yelled. “I can’t navigate accurately flying backwards at this speed!” Then he said in a calm, cool tone, “Have I mentioned how I hate you lately?”
I smiled—that was the Ship I knew—and squeezed the thumb triggers unleashing a bevy of mallow projected bullets on the Cranks. Of course the Cranks did the same back. Difference was, while the bullets wouldn’t breach either of our hulls, I was a crack shot and better informed. The Conner Flycraft have a pilot eject mechanism that overrides all the manual systems—safety protocol for an unconscious pilot. The sensors for said protocol are located in the tiny nose cone array, a target no more than a couple of inches around. Might as well have been a trash can lid for me. I nailed the closest fighter’s nose. The canopy popped, the pilot shot up and out, and the flycraft dropped. By the way his arms were waving, I guessed he’d never ejected before. Normally the mallow-chute would envelope him in a bounce sphere, but the chair hadn’t been designed to work so near the surface. The flycraft hit first, tumbling end over end and spraying parts across the water. The chair hit a second later. I was moving too fast to see the results. His wingman cut and ran. They always did.
“Lucky ass,” Ship said.
“No luck about it. Mark,” I said and flipped the yokes back the other way.
“Wait!” Ship screeched and redirected the thrust, but this time a millisecond too late. We went into a succession of flat spins. One of his wing tips kept cutting into the lake, spraying water.
“Damn it, Ship, keep up!” I yanked both pedals up, the yokes back, and cut the throttles to half. Ship straightened out and moved into a slow upward arch.
“You’ve got to warn a demon before pulling a stunt like that.”
I hit the button and watched the squeegee run down the water splotched canopy. “Where’s that Crank?”
“Still don’t hear a please.” Ship huffed. “He’s high on your one o’clock.”
“You’ll wait past eternity for a please from me.” I jammed the throttles down and banked us into a high speed pursuit course. “What’s your tail temperature?”
“Please! What’s the temperature, please?” Ship shouted, then, after a heavy sigh, his voice dropped into a tone of resigned acceptance. “Hull temperatures are normal.”
The fire was out but Ship was still shaking. “Take a standard and readjust surface control trim for the shortened rudder.”
“Already on it,” he said in his most bored sounding register.
Sure enough the shaking settled into a tolerable rattle. I banked a little port and then a little starboard. The controls were sluggish but I could compensate. A dot appeared in the distance. “Got him.” I pushed the throttles dead against their stops.
“He’s faster and you’re running me ragged. Just let him go. You’ve proved you’re the best or whatever it is you humans do. I’m tired and you’re nearly out of time.” I’m sure it was just the broken speaker, but I could have sworn I caught a hint of lament in his voice.
“Ye of little faith,” I said and turned both thruster air valves slightly closed.
“I’m a demon, remember, I don’t have any faith, and neither do you. And what did you do to my thruster air flow?”
“Just a little trick I picked up.”
Ship was silent a minute. I confirmed what I’d seen though the canopy on the imager screen. I was closing the gap between us and the Crank.
“Hey missy, my mallow mixture’s running too hot in the burn chamber. You might have gained a little speed but you’ll scorch my lining. Put it back or else.”
I accidentally laughed, my eyes focused on the enemy flycraft. “Or else, what, tin brain?”
“Or else—Jazz!” Ship yelled so abruptly he broke my focus.
“What?” I asked but I’d already seen. Dropping out of the clouds came flycraft after flycraft, more than I could quickly count and all of them bearing Crank markings; the skum. Cranks were the airborne equivalent of privateers unofficially sanctioned by the wizards council because no one else dared, or cared, to patrol the between lands. The Cranks and me had bad history. Basically we loathed each-other. But a few weeks ago they attacked me and DJ, my trusty and loyal sidekick, an attack that had a Crank cross the forbidden Nittsburg border and that landed DJ in the hospital. I didn’t take lightly to attacks on my friends so I decided to spend my last hours of life taking out as many of them as I could.
I didn’t plan on quite this many though. The imager screen was covered with little grey triangles, four oblong dots, and a particularly nasty tetrahedron. Too many, I couldn’t do this alone. I brought us to a full stop letting the docking thrusters hold us in place.
“Ship, switch flight controls to automatic! Leave all weapons on manual!” My heart raced, sweat ran down my face, and yeah, I was a little scared but a lot revved too. I tightened my harness, settled my boots deeper into the pedal straps, and opened the thruster air valves. I switched reserve power to the weapons systems. “Alright, throttle up and turn us around, I want to open a space between us. Cycle six evasive maneuvers!”
“Would you stop shouting at me? You’re making me nervous,” Ship said in the lilting pitches that annoyed me so.
I heard a rush of air and metal sliding against metal. When I looked I saw three fighters firing
plasma missiles. “Dive!” I shouted as loudly as I was able.
“Fine, but since you refuse to ask politely, I’m disabling the cabin microphone,” Ship said and more dropped than dived. His decent came so abruptly that, despite my five point harness, I banged my head on the top of his canopy. My leather flight cap provided little protection and my face was already bruised from having taken several punches. I was certain to have a new lump, but, considering my circumstances, it seemed a trifle.
The missiles missed and Ship brought us to a sudden stop. I slammed down into the seat but it felt like my stomach failed to come along.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Quit with the sudden coming and going.”
Ship didn’t respond, which meant he’d made good on the microphone threat. Fine, I needed the quiet to concentrate. About a quarter of the triangles on the screen were moving around our port wing, another quarter circled the starboard. They were flanking us. The oblong circles were Crank Deltacraft, more modern than the Connors, less armor but faster, more agile, and better targeting systems. They were hanging back, forming a line in front of the tetrahedron. That tetrahedron in the back, that was a special Crank, one called Toerang, ‘the Flying Fox,’ leader of the Kriscrossa, the Crank’s elite squadron. He was the most dangerous flycraft pilot in the sky, admittedly better than me. He was ruthless, relentless, completely without morals, and very experienced. I was about to try a very old
“Ahhh!” Ship sounded nervous. All was right with the world again.
I fired both cannons. The big, osriilium balls smashed two perfectly round holes though the point stub-wing’s hull. Black smoke poured out of the dropping flycraft. I’d breached his missile tubes setting raw plasma loose in the hull. The thick smoke forced his tailing flycraft up and away.
Shoving the sticks forward and pushing the flight pedals down, I drove Ship into a steep decent. I veered to starboard to avoid the crashing Connor. “Bye-bye, jerk-ass.”
“Oh very clever, milady, you’re so smart. Except that you seem to have forgotten that we’re on fire!”
“Call me that again and milady will shove a chili pepper bomb up your aft thruster port. And no, I didn’t forget.” I’d led my adversaries over the greater lake because I didn’t want fallout from the dogfight damaging anyone important to me. Now I saw another advantage. I leveled us off at the water surface, then flipped Ship upside-down.
“What are you doing? I can’t see the Cranks like this; my sensors are too close to the water.”
“Time for a bath, stinky.” Upside-down wasn’t my best attitude. I constantly had to remind myself to reverse my control reactions, up was now down and vise-versa. I got us dropping, meaning I had to move the controls like I wanted to go up, until Ship’s tail, and subsequently the top of the canopy, was dragging though the water. Keeping Ship from dropping under was a struggle, especially because the denser than air water had taken the shake and built it into a full fledged wobble, and the wobble hurt my broken ribs so badly my eyes were watering. “What’s the tail surface temperature?”
“Oh I don’t know; you’re shaking me to pieces. I can’t read anything, but I’ll bet those Cranks are close and you’ve got my soft white underbelly exposed!”
“Good point,” I said and rolled us upright as high caliber bullets rained down on the water and pinged off Ship’s thick hide. I flinched from the torrent of noise.
“They’re right behind us!” Ship yelled.
“Good,” I said. “Flip thrust output on my mark.”
“What! We can’t reverse; we’d smash into them.”
“On my mark!” I shouted. The pain in my throat pushed out tears that ran down my face.
Still skimming the lake’s surface, I pulled the flight pedals to neutral and pushed one yoke forward and pulled the other back. “Mark!”
With my skill and the aid of the inertia nullifier, I spun my flycraft one-hundred and eighty degrees within the distance of his short wing span. As I did Ship flipped his thruster output and we were racing across the lake backwards.
“Hey!” Ship yelled. “I can’t navigate accurately flying backwards at this speed!” Then he said in a calm, cool tone, “Have I mentioned how I hate you lately?”
I smiled—that was the Ship I knew—and squeezed the thumb triggers unleashing a bevy of mallow projected bullets on the Cranks. Of course the Cranks did the same back. Difference was, while the bullets wouldn’t breach either of our hulls, I was a crack shot and better informed. The Conner Flycraft have a pilot eject mechanism that overrides all the manual systems—safety protocol for an unconscious pilot. The sensors for said protocol are located in the tiny nose cone array, a target no more than a couple of inches around. Might as well have been a trash can lid for me. I nailed the closest fighter’s nose. The canopy popped, the pilot shot up and out, and the flycraft dropped. By the way his arms were waving, I guessed he’d never ejected before. Normally the mallow-chute would envelope him in a bounce sphere, but the chair hadn’t been designed to work so near the surface. The flycraft hit first, tumbling end over end and spraying parts across the water. The chair hit a second later. I was moving too fast to see the results. His wingman cut and ran. They always did.
“Lucky ass,” Ship said.
“No luck about it. Mark,” I said and flipped the yokes back the other way.
“Wait!” Ship screeched and redirected the thrust, but this time a millisecond too late. We went into a succession of flat spins. One of his wing tips kept cutting into the lake, spraying water.
“Damn it, Ship, keep up!” I yanked both pedals up, the yokes back, and cut the throttles to half. Ship straightened out and moved into a slow upward arch.
“You’ve got to warn a demon before pulling a stunt like that.”
I hit the button and watched the squeegee run down the water splotched canopy. “Where’s that Crank?”
“Still don’t hear a please.” Ship huffed. “He’s high on your one o’clock.”
“You’ll wait past eternity for a please from me.” I jammed the throttles down and banked us into a high speed pursuit course. “What’s your tail temperature?”
“Please! What’s the temperature, please?” Ship shouted, then, after a heavy sigh, his voice dropped into a tone of resigned acceptance. “Hull temperatures are normal.”
The fire was out but Ship was still shaking. “Take a standard and readjust surface control trim for the shortened rudder.”
“Already on it,” he said in his most bored sounding register.
Sure enough the shaking settled into a tolerable rattle. I banked a little port and then a little starboard. The controls were sluggish but I could compensate. A dot appeared in the distance. “Got him.” I pushed the throttles dead against their stops.
“He’s faster and you’re running me ragged. Just let him go. You’ve proved you’re the best or whatever it is you humans do. I’m tired and you’re nearly out of time.” I’m sure it was just the broken speaker, but I could have sworn I caught a hint of lament in his voice.
“Ye of little faith,” I said and turned both thruster air valves slightly closed.
“I’m a demon, remember, I don’t have any faith, and neither do you. And what did you do to my thruster air flow?”
“Just a little trick I picked up.”
Ship was silent a minute. I confirmed what I’d seen though the canopy on the imager screen. I was closing the gap between us and the Crank.
“Hey missy, my mallow mixture’s running too hot in the burn chamber. You might have gained a little speed but you’ll scorch my lining. Put it back or else.”
I accidentally laughed, my eyes focused on the enemy flycraft. “Or else, what, tin brain?”
“Or else—Jazz!” Ship yelled so abruptly he broke my focus.
“What?” I asked but I’d already seen. Dropping out of the clouds came flycraft after flycraft, more than I could quickly count and all of them bearing Crank markings; the skum. Cranks were the airborne equivalent of privateers unofficially sanctioned by the wizards council because no one else dared, or cared, to patrol the between lands. The Cranks and me had bad history. Basically we loathed each-other. But a few weeks ago they attacked me and DJ, my trusty and loyal sidekick, an attack that had a Crank cross the forbidden Nittsburg border and that landed DJ in the hospital. I didn’t take lightly to attacks on my friends so I decided to spend my last hours of life taking out as many of them as I could.
I didn’t plan on quite this many though. The imager screen was covered with little grey triangles, four oblong dots, and a particularly nasty tetrahedron. Too many, I couldn’t do this alone. I brought us to a full stop letting the docking thrusters hold us in place.
“Ship, switch flight controls to automatic! Leave all weapons on manual!” My heart raced, sweat ran down my face, and yeah, I was a little scared but a lot revved too. I tightened my harness, settled my boots deeper into the pedal straps, and opened the thruster air valves. I switched reserve power to the weapons systems. “Alright, throttle up and turn us around, I want to open a space between us. Cycle six evasive maneuvers!”
“Would you stop shouting at me? You’re making me nervous,” Ship said in the lilting pitches that annoyed me so.
I heard a rush of air and metal sliding against metal. When I looked I saw three fighters firing
plasma missiles. “Dive!” I shouted as loudly as I was able.
“Fine, but since you refuse to ask politely, I’m disabling the cabin microphone,” Ship said and more dropped than dived. His decent came so abruptly that, despite my five point harness, I banged my head on the top of his canopy. My leather flight cap provided little protection and my face was already bruised from having taken several punches. I was certain to have a new lump, but, considering my circumstances, it seemed a trifle.
The missiles missed and Ship brought us to a sudden stop. I slammed down into the seat but it felt like my stomach failed to come along.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Quit with the sudden coming and going.”
Ship didn’t respond, which meant he’d made good on the microphone threat. Fine, I needed the quiet to concentrate. About a quarter of the triangles on the screen were moving around our port wing, another quarter circled the starboard. They were flanking us. The oblong circles were Crank Deltacraft, more modern than the Connors, less armor but faster, more agile, and better targeting systems. They were hanging back, forming a line in front of the tetrahedron. That tetrahedron in the back, that was a special Crank, one called Toerang, ‘the Flying Fox,’ leader of the Kriscrossa, the Crank’s elite squadron. He was the most dangerous flycraft pilot in the sky, admittedly better than me. He was ruthless, relentless, completely without morals, and very experienced. I was about to try a very old
