Mainak Dhar - Vimana

Kartik raced out of the room to ready himself for the upcoming mission. Aaditya followed him to the hangar. There were at least a dozen new craft he had not seen previously. Each seemed to be shaped like a Deva vimana, but was less than half the size. He guessed these where the remotely controlled craft.

'Kartik, I'll come with you.' Kartik was already halfway into his cockpit when Aaditya called out to him.

'My friend, this is what our wars of yore looked like. Dozens of us against them. No prisoners, no mercy. You are a good pilot, perhaps even a great one, but I don't want to risk you in this mission.'

Aaditya rushed towards Kartik. 'We are a team. I'll come with you.'

Kartik looked down at him with eyes whose wisdom seemed to be belying his reputation as a mere jock. 'Aadi, Kalki is not new at this. He will have cards up his sleeve that we cannot see yet. You don't need to sacrifice yourself.'

'And you do?'

Kartik's expression turned to one of sadness and he entered his cockpit. 'I have already disgraced myself by betraying you. The least I can do is redeem myself in this mission.'

Aaditya watched as Kartik's vimana slid out of the hangar, followed closely by the drones. He rushed back to the conference room to see what was happening. Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu were each sitting in front of the large display, their faces frozen in masks of concentration. Narada whispered to Aaditya as he sat down next to him. 'Each of them is controlling six drones with their thoughts.'

Aaditya felt a hand slide into his and looked to his right to see Tanya there. He watched the display as the nineteen dots representing the Deva vimanas appeared and then moved at high speed towards the US coastline. By now the first tsunami waves had struck and the death and devastation was being carried live into billions of homes by the news helicopters. There were still several red dots circling the disaster zone, as Kartik and the drones closed in.

Aaditya exulted as Kartik launched his first volley of astras from more than three hundred kilometres out, and his accompanying drones followed suit a second later. More than forty astras homed in on the Asuras at hypersonic speed. At such extreme range, the Asuras had time to react and no more than a dozen were lost to the first volley as the remaining Asura craft engaged in evasive maneuvers.

Within seconds, the blue and red dots were within touching distance, and the vimanas engaged in a swirling, furious dogfight. Aaditya turned to see the three senior Devas staring at the display in utter concentration. As one of the blue dots disappeared on the display, he saw Vishnu flinch, but then again focus on the unfolding battle.

Aaditya remembered something, and took out his flight ear plug from his pocket and inserted it into his ear. He could now hear Kartik. The young Deva's voice was methodical, almost calm, as he described the battle.

'Got one more Asura drone. They're sending the drones first, and we're swatting them like flies.'

Aaditya watched on the display as a couple of more red dots disappeared. This was indeed turning out to be a bit of a turkey shoot. Everything was going perfectly, but something was bothering Aaditya. He turned to whisper to Narada.

'If Kalki is indeed so smart, why has he sent his forces to be massacred like this?'

He was answered a split second later as Indra exclaimed.

'It's an ambush! Kartik, watch your back!'

Aaditya watched as the screen filled with dozens of red dots that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He now heard Kartik's voice again, seemingly calm, but now more on edge.

'Ok, there are at least fifty of them behind us. I'll hold them, but I need help.'

A second later, he spoke again.

'Brahma, get your drones to cover me. There's no point in destroying their drones, I'm going for the Asuras who are hovering at their rear.'

Aaditya watched as Kartik's vimana sliced through the others. It was flanked by four more blue dots that destroyed a red dot each. Kartik was headed for the six large vimanas at the rear. Vimanas piloted by Asuras.

'Maya, there you are.'

Several red dots were now trying to encircle Kartik, and Aaditya looked at Indra, who just nodded. Tanya sensed what was about to happen and squeezed his hand. He gave her a kiss and then he was gone, following Indra out towards the hangar.

Within minutes, he and Indra were in their vimanas. There was no time to be wasted. Indra accelerated to more than ten thousand kilometres per hour and raced towards the scene of the battle. Aaditya was not far behind, rapidly climbing and then following Indra at the maximum speed he could extract out of his vimana. Yet, even as he sped to help Kartik at speeds human aircraft could not yet dream of achieving, he wondered if their help would be too little, too late.

***

More than half of the Deva drones had now disappeared from the display, while the number of red dots increased as fresh reinforcements arrived from their underwater base or carrier to more than make up for their losses.

Indra had to shout to get Aaditya's attention.

'Aadi, slow down a bit when we're four hundred kilometres away. Brahma is sending drones to help us, and they're not as fast as we are.'

'Kartik may not last that long!'

Indra's voice was now more even, as if trying to calm Aaditya down.

'I know how you feel, but the two of us will get overwhelmed. There must be more than thirty Asura drones there.'

'Indra, how do I know which are the drones and which the Asuras are piloting?'

He had barely said the words when his display changed slightly to show eight of the red dots glowing.

'Aadi, those are the Asuras.'

The closest red dot was now less than five hundred kilometres away. Indra had slowed down. A dozen blue dots were following them. Aaditya's display told him that they were still ten minutes away. As he saw three more of the Deva drones fall to the Asuras, he decided that those were ten minutes that Kartik did not have the luxury of waiting for.

He saw four drones close in on Kartik from behind even as the young Deva downed one more drone. Aaditya's vimana screamed in towards the melee, firing a volley of four astras at extreme range at the four drones. Three hit while the fourth drone aborted its attack to evade the astra.

'Kartik, don't think you could grab all the kills yourself.'

'Join the party. Hold the drones while I get to the bloody Asuras. As usual, the cowards are holding back.'

Aaditya was now close enough to see the nearest Asura drone. To his surprise, the drone looked just like an F-22 fighter, painted entirely in black. Another drone to his left looked just like a Su-30, again painted in black.

'So that's why they were chasing all those high-performance fighters. They've engineered their drones based on our designs.' Aaditya said to himself.

He moved his vimana right behind the F-22, still using his clenched good luck charm like a joystick. He could see the drone just a kilometre ahead, and as he focused, a red circle appeared on his cockpit screen. He had been trained in using the optically guided aiming system for the vajra by Kartik countless times and now he was putting all those lessons to use.

He moved his head slightly to target the drone, and the red circle followed his gaze. When it was on the drone, Aaditya fired two bursts from his vajra. Blue streaks reached out towards the drone. While the F-22 rolled away from the first streak, the second caught it on the right wing, causing it to explode in a bright fireball and then disappear in a mist of flame and sparks. The Su-30 was trying to get on Aaditya's tail, but he took his vimana into a tight roll that brought the drone right in front of him for a fleeting instant. Another burst from his vajra and the drone exploded. He finally took a look at his display and saw a dozen red dots disappear.