Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bren had every available fighter pilot in the air, the squadron split into three units—one being led by her, one by Alpha, and the last by Seb. They’d split their focus on the most valuable targets to back up the rebel and UEF soldiers on the ground.
So far, they’d only lost two jets, but the pilots had ejected and landed safely. She’d just given the order for her unit to pull back, as it seemed the ground forces were poised to take the target, and any intervention from her fighter pilots now might only cause casualties to their own people.
“Lieutenant Brenner, come in.”
Bren tapped her comm to answer Commander Yang. Though what the heck he was doing on her squad line was anyone’s guess.
“Receiving you, sir.”
“I have an urgent intercept mission for you. What’s the status of your squad?”
“I’ve just pulled alpha unit out. Seb pulled Charlie unit out about ten minutes ago, but Captain Alphin is still engaged with beta unit.”
“Two units should be enough. A fleet of jets is about to break atmosphere on Ilari.”
“What jets? From where?” The CSS forces hadn’t ever had access to jets, only old armed shuttles.
“Jenna’s CI intelligence suggests this is that other faction, the one that wants to take the uprising into the wider galaxy. We hailed them but they didn’t respond. We’re treating them as enemy forces.”
Holy heck. This was it. Though things seemed to be going in favor of the UEF, the day’s battle wasn’t won yet, and those jets could easily turn the tide back to a CSS advantage. If they didn’t stop that fleet now, it could mean the difference between Ilari having peace or the rest of the galaxy getting caught up in a devastating war.
“Send me an intercept bearing and number of vessels.”
Yang agreed before cutting the transmission, and she was already tapping her comm again to contact Seb.
“Seb, bring your unit into formation and fall in with me to await further instruction.”
“Copy that,” he replied through the radio.
As her onboard computer showed Seb and his unit coming into formation behind her own group of jets, Yang’s information came through.
Twenty V-27 multi-atmospheric fighter jets breaking the atmosphere a hundred clicks from her current position. They were a few years older than the deployed V-29 jets her squadron used. But they were still going to give the UEF forces a more closely matched battle than anything the CSS had ever thrown at them.
Her heart skipped a single rushed beat before a practiced calm stole over her. Whatever happened, they had to make sure those jets didn’t make it to their target or achieve their ends.
“Squad-wide communication, this is the CAFF speaking.” She took a short breath, gathering her thoughts. “An unknown fleet of V-27 fighter jets have just broken atmosphere. They’ll be showing up on your screens any second now. Commander Yang tasked us with intercepting these jets before they can engage our ground forces. This is going to be riskier than any other time we’ve come up against the CSS forces. The V-27s are more closely matched to our own ships. But we’ve run this scenario many times over the years. Now it’s time to put those exercises into use. We can do this. I have faith in every single one of you.”
Multiple responses of to the black and beyond came through her comm, the squad’s unofficial motto.
“Bren, come in,” Alpha hailed her, voice strained.
“Go ahead.”
“Do you need beta unit? I can break off and be on your six in a few minutes.”
“How’s the target looking?”
“Still too hard to call. Ground forces are making headway, but the CSS are holding out.”
She was tempted to call him in, to increase their chances of an easy victory. But if they won the fight against the unknown enemy, only to lose a key target to take down the CSS forces, it wouldn’t be worth the extra jets.
“Hold position. Charlie and alpha units should be enough.”
“Understood.” Alpha sounded far from happy with her order, but he was an excellent fighter pilot and would never argue or question her decisions.
She checked the screen where the enemy ships had appeared on the outer edges of her jet’s short-range sensors.
“Ready to engage in under three minutes,” she alerted the two units behind her.
She checked the ground they were covering, not wanting this skirmish to happen over populated areas that might result in civilian casualties. They were going to skim over the command post the UEF forces had set up—where Cam was overseeing troop movements—but otherwise, it was forest and open fields in the immediate vicinity.
Since she’d walked away from him on the ground, she’d been forcing herself not to think about him. She was still pissed that he’d apparently thought so little of her the entire time they’d spent together, that he’d assumed she’d let her emotions get in the way of her competency as a soldier.
She’d finally been able to see through the past, see beyond the assumptions she’d wrongly made about him. And underneath she’d found a man who was everything she’d never let herself dream about.
And she’d believed Cam had as well. That all of their baggage could be put behind them. That maybe they could find some kind of future together.
But she’d been wrong.
She’d let her emotions get in the way of logic, and if the ache in her chest was anything to go by, she’d paid the price for it.
However, she had to shove all that down. Compartmentalize. Deal with it later. Those unknown enemy jets were a minute out, and she owed her squad 100 percent commitment and concentration. They were relying on her to lead them through this safely.
“Alpha unit and Charlie unit, ready to engage.” She tabbed her weapons hot, pulse skipping as the jets came into her visual field. “Split the pack and then run them down.”
Just as the enemy jets opened fire, she banked her jet hard left, alpha unit on her tail shadowing her as Seb took Charlie unit hard right. They rounded out around the enemy ships, and the V-27s’ formation quickly started breaking up. Obviously, these pilots weren’t as well trained as her squadron. Breaking formation made this fight messier, but it would also give them the advantage if the enemy were already panicking.
Opening fire on the scattering ships, she aimed for engines and wings, wanting to disable the enemy, not kill them. Unfortunately, shots went astray, and clearly the enemy didn’t have the same scruples, attempting to hit her squad’s cockpits and body of their jets.
“Bastards,” she muttered, spinning her jet off to the right and upward as a streak of fire came too close for comfort. That one would have left singe marks on her hull. She evened out and dropped back down just as two of her squads V-29s got blown out of the sky. One exploded, taking a nearby enemy ship with it, but the other went spiraling in a plume of black smoke to the ground.
Seb was swearing into the comm. “They took out Taylor. Diaz is in uncontrolled decent.”
“Diaz eject!” she yelled into her comm, concentration split between a ship that’d attached itself to her tail and where Diaz’s jet was plunging to the ground. But the cockpit hatch popped, and the tiny figure of Diaz shot outward, falling steady before his parachute deployed.
“Thank God,” she breathed.
Now, to lose her admirer.
In a few deft maneuvers, and with the help of one of her squad members, she shook her tail and took out one of the other enemy ships in the process. Several of the V-27s were in retreat with damage, and a few had crash landed. They’d almost cut the unknown force in half.
“We’ve got them on the run, people,” she said, broadcasting to both units of jets. “Regroup for final assault.”
She pulled back, taking a long sweep away from the enemy jets to give her squad a chance to fall in.
The enemy ships started to pull together as well, but weren’t as fast as her highly-trained pilots.
“Go for splinter. Let’s finish this fast.”
Because the sooner they got this skirmish over with, the less likely she’d lose any more pilots. Hard and fast, just the way Seb liked to do things. He’d be loving this.
She took the lead as they settled into a trajectory to intercept and fragment the remaining enemy jets, creating confusion and making them easier targets to pick off.
The strategy worked as she’d planned, the unknown ships scattering as she and her squad cut through the middle. All except for one V-27 bringing up the very rear of the enemy forces. Bren didn’t know if they hadn’t seen her or had decided to play chicken, but it didn’t detour from her line of fire, even though she was peppering it with ammo. At the last second she banked down, but the enemy jet clipped her tail. She felt it in the jolt and heard it in the screaming shear of metal.
“Dammit!” Warning lights and alarms started up, telling her only one of the rear stabilizers was working, making her jet list. She only just managed to pull it out of falling into a spin.
“Bren!” Seb’s voice cut through the chatter on the comm. “You’ve taken damage.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she muttered, fighting to get some altitude and even out. The sweat that’d long since broken out on her brow started dripping down the side of her face.
“Your tail is on fire.”
Even as Seb said the words, another warning started flashing on her screen—telling her fire had taken hold in the stabilizer that hadn’t been responding.
“Hell! I’m bailing out, Seb.”
“You’re clear. Stay safe. I’ll send someone—”
The rest of Seb’s transmission cut out, possibly because the fire was spreading fast and had affected her ship’s wiring.
Forcing her mind to blank and not think too closely about what she had to do, she double-checked that her harness with the built in micro-chute was secure on her chest and then reached down and yanked the emergency eject lever.
The hatch ripped free and a blast of cutting wind slapped her in the face, above her oxygen mask, stealing her breath and making her eyes water. Next thing she knew, she was launched clear of the falling jet, tumbling over a few times before spreading her arms and steadying herself.
She checked her position to make sure she really was clear of her jet, and wreckage or any other anomalies, then pulled the tab to free her chute.
It caught her with a gentle jerk, slowing her decent from a plunge to a fast sail.
The ground was still coming up quickly, and below her was nothing but trees. She needed an open field to minimize the risk of injury. Unfortunately, she’d already lost too much altitude to maneuver far. There was a field way off to her left, but she would have needed to aim for it even before she’d ejected from her jet.
Her best option was a small clearing, like trying to thread a needle at a hundred miles an hour.