Anthology - From the Street

"Phil, you get the Liebre with the gun. It's probably a spotter for the two tank hunters," I instructed over the intercom. "I'll take care of the wing drones."

"Gotcha, Jo-Girl," replied Phil. A half second later, a loud noise exploded above my head, as tracer rounds buzzed like psychotic fireflies toward the lead drone.

At the same time, I balled both of my virtual hands into fists, activating the missile fire control system and arming two Vogeljager air-to-air missiles. Concentrating on the Wandjina to the right, a green diamond materialized into view and zigzagged around until it centered on the drone. When the diamond came to rest, a continuous tone squealed in my ear, indicating target lock. I swung one arm forward, my hand opening as it tossed an invisible softball. In the real world, one of the two AAMs launched from the internal missile tubes and hissed as it spiraled ahead.

Once the first missile was under way, I focused my concentration on the second drone, and the green diamond moved from right to left. When the lock tone sounded again, I swung forward the other arm, and a second Vogeljager launched and spiraled leftwards.

No sooner was the second missile under way when a fiery orange blossom erupted, as one of the tracer rounds from Phil's autocannon ripped through the Liebre's fuel tanks. A few seconds later, the first Vogeljager connected, as the missile spiraled below the underbelly of the right Wandjina. The missile exploded, sending hot shards through the unmanned craft's underbelly. Several shards penetrated the fuel tanks, causing the drone to vanish in a ball of fire.

But as I turned to watch the other missile take down the last drone, the SWR trilled, warning of radar lock. Without seeing who was painting us, I instinctively twisted into a swan dive.

"Hey!" shouted Phil with a curse. "Wadjatink yer doin', Jo-girl?"

"We got another bandit, Phil, just showed up outta nowhere and painted us with his sensor," I shouted back through the intercom. Looking around to see where the other guy was, I located him when the missile he launched showed up behind our tail.

"Phil! Seeker at six!" I shouted. Immediately the auto-defense systems ejected a chaff bundle of aluminum strips to confuse the missile's radar seeker, while Phil swung the turret around in an attempt to down it. As I mentally switched on the Electronic Countermeasure systems to jam the missile, I simultaneously cut engine power. I could almost feel my stomach jump into my throat, as the thunderbird plummeted several thousand meters, stabilizing only a hair's length above the ground.

Hugging close to the ground, I zigzagged around several hills. By doing this I momentarily broke sensor lock, indicative by the irregular stopping and starting of the alarm. Coupled with ECM, this confused the missile long enough to lose lock, and it wandered off into the night.

"Where is he?" asked Phil. "Didja see who it was?"

"It was another Banshee, Phil," I replied. "I managed to get a visual ID as he got that off."

"Drek!" cursed Phil. "Another Banshee? Our Vogeljagers ain't going to be effective against its armor."

"Yeah," I muttered. "And with his Outlaw antitank missiles, he can snipe at us all day while staying out of range of our autocannon. Hang on!"

I made a sudden dive, directing the t-bird into a valley. The low hills clustered in this area provided a lot of dead zones that would hide us from the other t-bird's sensors. This would force him to come in searching after us.

"Keep your eyes peeled for him, Phil," I warned. "It's going to take all of my concentration to keep us from flying into the hillside."

"Gotcha, Jo-girl," complied Phil. I maneuvered the t-bird over the center of the valley and followed the winding course of the river burbling through it, heading approximately east to northeast.

I switched off the ECM and switched on the electronic deception module. ECM is only an electronic smokescreen, and anyone can figure there's someone present, somewhere in the digital haze. Electronic deception, or ED, was more insidious, manipulating signals through waveform interference. It wouldn't make us invisible, but it could fool the other Banshee to thinking we were heading north instead of south, or flying fast instead of slow.

Turning to clear a hillside spur, I suddenly found myself facing the enemy Banshee. Apparently he was as surprised to see me as I was of him, because he veered left to avoid crashing into us. The alarm blared briefly as I reflexively swerved the other way, but the snap shot he got off was wildly inaccurate and veered off-target. I turned and climbed further to the right to leap over the crest of the ridge line.

As we passed over the top, I pulled back hard on the throttle, cutting power once again. The other side dropped off steeply, and so did the t-bird. I adjusted the jets down and forward, effectively halting forward motion. Only the ground effect from the turbine fans kept us from crashing to the ground so dangerously close underneath. I flipped on the intercom. "Okay, Phil, get ready. Swing the turret forward and angle up."

Just as I spoke the other t-bird passed overhead as it crested the ridge. But instead of dropping down and hugging the terrain like we did, the enemy Banshee maintained its altitude and stayed high, to get a better field of view.

"Bad move, chummer. Sic 'im, Phil!" Immediately Phil opened up with the autocannon, raking a full stream of cannon shells along the other t-bird's underbelly. A small explosion popped from one side as a shell hit a critical system. Shuddering out of control and belching black smoke, the enemy t-bird careened headlong into a small hill. A ball of orange flame lit up the night sky, which on the Low-Light vision made the valley brighter than the noonday sun.

Adjusting the jets back, I started our own Banshee moving forward again. Shades of red crept into my green-tinted Low-Light vision, as the burning wreckage started igniting the woods around. I turned to get back on course, flying low and slow to make sure no one else was trailing us. After a few minutes of seeing nobody, I loosened up on the throttle, allowing the t-bird to pick up speed and rise over the hills.

I flipped on the virtual intercom. "Think we're in the clear now, Phil."

"Whew. That's a relief," said Phil. "That other Banshee almost had our number good."

"Yeah," I nodded. "I think he may have been waiting for us."

"How do ya figure?"

"You know how he surprised us after we made the turn? I figure he must have been using Mt. Rainier as a cover." I reasoned. "As we were coming in from the northwest side, he was hiding on the southwest. As we turned, he turned to keep the mountain between us, until he was behind us when we straightened out. Clever bastard."

"Sneaky," admitted Phil. "Ya know, something's been bothering me about this trip."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Well, I dunno," Phil hesitated. "You know that Gonzales, the guy you replaced, got waxed on our way to Seattle, right?"

"Yeah." I don't think I was going to like what he would say next.

"Well, we were just crossing through Tsimshian when Johnny got tagged before, almost the same as now," Phil said. "Gonzales and me dropped back to take care of the bandit, when we got bushwhacked by an anti-aircraft track. They hit us with a zapper missile, which fried Gonzales' brain. I've got backup controls up here, but they're manual, and the only reason I got away was dumb luck."

"You saying you were set up?" I asked suspiciously.

"I dunno. It seems weird this happening the same way twice." A long silence ensued before Phil changed the subject. "We better hurry up and catch up wit' Johnny. He must be a hundred or so kilos ahead of us."

"Roger that, Phil." I cut loose on the throttle, and the Banshee roared ahead into the early evening horizon.