In Flight

Carrot

The orange disc of Mercury grew at an amazing speed, coming closer, closer. Caught in its gravity well, there was nothing Jetlag could do about it. Not one ounce of his Myst Knight training or Cybrid intelligence could help him. The Banshee had managed to burn itself out this far. Without the computer, Jetlag could not even be sure that Mercury's weak gravity would be enough. He was surprised he had managed to get this far. Although Mercury was the Cybrids first port of call on their unsuccessful route to system domination, he had heard of some small force on Mercury, in the Antipode region and had hoped they could assist. Now he only watched and hoped that Mercury could pull him close enough in to avoid reeling towards the sun. He had to save the remainder of his fuel to attempt a landing. On Earth or Mars, or maybe even Venus, he would be able to land on the Banshees turbine engines, but on Mercury, there was not enough atmosphere for the turbine engines to produce any lift at all. So, he sat and waited for the planets gravity to pull the small craft into a short orbit to the Antipode region.

~

":lt;Jetlag>\\:lt;Rat-Tramper-5th> requesting access to//landing on Venus::Second-World. Access code beta 95 ceti 88, :lt;Machinator> sect."

"<Jetlag>\\<Rat-Tramper-5th>, <your> request has been denied, <Exemplar> sect now controls//dominates//commands this planet, space-forms have been instructed to destroy//eradicate//purge <you>."

Jetlag cursed, using the code was a gamble, he was not sure whether it would work. Apparently it had, but the rift had widened between the sects.

He slammed the main propulsion throttle home on his panel, the G-forces pushing him back into his seat. Had he been human, he would have passed out, as it was he stayed completely conscious.

The rear view showed Two Cybrid fighters climbing out of Venus's atmosphere. They both mounted CSGs or Cybrid Space Guns. They had about the same hitting power as rail guns, but traveled much faster and fired the oxygen-propelled slugs at a faster rate. Their use of oxygen as a propellant had inspired many pilots to refer to them simply as "pea shooters".

Jetlag knew that he could not outrun them, he may be able to outmaneuver them, if he was lucky. As he rolled into a sharp turn, he watched slugs being absorbed by his shields and the excess energy they were using draining the reserves. He turned to face the two fighters and his shields quickly failed despite having his entire shield protection directed to the front. The oncoming slugs pinged off of the ships thick hull. The computer screamed warnings until Jet hit the alarm button. Now the Banshee headed back to Venus. In the early stages of the Starsiege, the Machinator sect had sent him to Venus and he had had a lot of experience with the Oberwind. He was counting that these new fighters had new pilot-forms inside, he may be able to outsmart them.

The engines burned hard to pick up momentum for a second, then the ship coasted towards the planet. There was no time for a careful calculation, he would have to do this on a wing. He would not be able to land without being attacked by a quad of HERCs, now that the Cybrids were aware of his presence.

The computer drew up a map of the atmosphere on the screen, rough air, wind speed, direction, it all showed up. One of the fighters had burned up in the atmosphere, the second was still with him and the dust was already corroding his fuel line. The yellow and checkered paint of the Banshee started pealing off from the onslaught of the Oberwind.

~

Jetlag looked at the baked planet below him. The secondary systems, barely functioning under the power of the jury-rigged reactor, showed the gravity of Mercury finally tug at the ship. The Banshee started its slow descent to the Antipode, an agonizing wait was ahead, not knowing whether the Cybrids had detected the low energy signature of the Banshee, he might land right in the middle of a company of Cybrid war-forms. He had come too far now to be stopped by that, he thought, too far.

~

This space-form must have been mentoring the other one, it refused to give up, it anticipated his every move. The two ships were locked in combat, the Cybrid never quite getting a clean shot at the Banshee, the Banshee not quite losing the space-form.

An exceedingly dangerous tactic flashed into Jets head, stupid and dangerous, but possible. It all relied on the Banshee’s atmospheric engines firing, which was not something that could be counted on on Venus.

The Banshee entered a steep dive to the surface. The ship pulled up mere meters from the ground, the speed it was moving at was staggering. He knew for a fact that these space fighters mostly relied on their carrier ships' sensors for target location, so advanced sensors were not considered necessary on the fighters. Jet spotted a boulder on the horizon with his sensors and maneuvered his vessel between it and the space-form. The vehicle sped towards it with the Cybrid in hot pursuit, blissfully unaware of the boulder, the Banshee shadowing it from the light sensors. Timing was essential in this tactic.

The Banshee climbed up a few meters and the liquid fuel rockets cut off. The Banshee glided towards the boulder.

Jet hit the starter for the powerful atmospheric turbines and the vessel shot up. The space-form, confused, decided to take a last shot at the Banshee. The shot skipped right through the shields and hit the instrument package in the rear. The computer sparked and the tactical and systems displays died. Below, the space-form exploded in a burst of flame.

The Banshee climbed back out of orbit on the rocket engines and burned hard on a course for Mercury, Jet could not land on Venus and Earth was shooting down anything that did not respond to hails recently. Mercury and the mysterious "Ghosts" were his only hope.

~

The vessel entered Mercury's weak atmosphere and the Banshee picked up speed. Now the inertia from the slingshot orbit was all that kept the pathetic air flowing around the wings, producing some small amount of lift.

On the horizon was a structure, or at least that's what Jet thought he saw, he could not be sure, without sensors he was flying blind. Only his cybernetically enhanced eyes were able to see the heat drop where the structure was.

After a while he was very close to the ground, so Jet decided to fire the engines. He eased the throttle home and the landing thrusters fired, or at least some of them did.

The rear thrusters failed to fire and the Banshee tipped nose up, causing the wings to stall. The rear slammed into the ground shaking the flight console off of its brackets and trapping Jet's legs.

The Banshee ground to a halt, and lay there.

"Aw, shit!"

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