<u>3</u>


    Credit the Entertainment Division for their grandest illusion, yet.  For warping light’s path enough to pull off a genuine miracle.


    V47Pilot had time just to alter the force shield behind him, slanting it, so that the hurtling mountain now two breaths away would perhaps miss Cerulean Dream and the station.  That craggy, onrushing rock filled his entire view field, too big and too fast to avoid, even by porting.


    Then, just as it bore down, dark and silent as death… as Pilot whispered, “I’m sorry,” to all those he’d failed…


    Two things happened at once. Light’s pathway snapped back to normal. Then, the colossal projectile just <u>powdered</u>, unable to withstand the tremendous force of all that momentum.  Went from mountain to glittering sandstorm, 218.65 miles to V47’s right, 32.49 degrees above the ecliptic and climbing.


    Stunned, blinking at a suddenly safe, open starfield, V47Pilot whirled to gape at that blizzard of sidelined, crushed stone.  Still a danger to Glimmr, except for his own stout shielding and Cerulean Dream’s mighty cannonade.


    <u>Alive</u>.  He was still alive, along with most of Red Flight, because of a clever illusion.  Because the Draug scans had been gimmicked, making them think he was two-hundred miles further sunward.  They’d aimed their shot at a ghost.  Nor were his actor friends done, yet.


    His cockpit still rang with screeching proximity alerts when a flood of new fighters came pouring out of the station’s launch bay.  Rogue Flight.  All of them, from Ace in Bull Dog, right down to Raptor in Bounce.  They swarmed from OS1210 to V47 in Reaper-mode (better for speed).  Said Ace, over comm-link,


    “We got you, Ghost!  We’ll handle defense and mop up.  You deal with <u>that</u>.”


    Which… right. The Draug fleet had come to an utter halt, having transferred every last bit of their own momentum to that short-lived, massive projectile.  He was having a storm of reactions.  He was, but V47 controlled the pilot’s heartbeat and respiration, providing calming injections and soft, jazzy music.  Still…


    “Ace!  Icebox!  Deathknell!  You’re here, all of you!”


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    “Nice to be part of the nameless mass,” Ravn said drily, adding, “Of course we’re here.  If there’s going to be a last season…”


    “We’ll just have to write it, ourselves,” finished Knellie (Deathknell, when she was in a… so rare… good mood).


    “Too much chatter,” cut in Ace, smiling a little.  “What looks good in a show is only distraction in actual battle, Troops.  Mind on the mission!”


    His blue eyes were kind but serious, and no one questioned his leadership.  Least of all V47Pilot, who listened along with the rest as the commander said,


    “We can’t go beyond the station’s real time projection range, Kid.”


    “Not without lagging and losing coherence,” added Icebox, scowling at limits.  “But we’ll cover the station and keep OVR-Lord out of your hair.  The rest is up to you, Ghost.”


    “One thing we’ve always been is lucky,” said Ace.  “They wrote that into the script from episode one, so… Fly safe, Rogues.  Last one back buys the next round.”


    V47Pilot whispered that last statement along with Ace, as the CGI battle-mechs formed a defensive pattern behind him.  Watching the show-vids, he’d heard those words 3.77 hundred-thousand times.  Now it was being said for <u>him</u>, making him part of the team. Not the last thing he heard before leaving, though, as Cerulean-1 woke up enough to take over the comm.  No OVR-Lord, no clamp-down.  Sounding tense, the captain demanded,


    “What is happening?! Who has authorized launch of a Titan?!”


    Trouble, but Deathknell said,


    “<u>Our</u> problem, Ghost.  We’ll smooth down the captain.  You deal with those bugs.”


    The Draugr had begun moving again.  Not to attack, this time.  Not yet.  Instead, they’d started rebuilding.


    As V47 moved cautiously forward, individual enemy units locked together in pairs, then teams, then whole regions.  In less than fifty-two ticks, they’d formed a massive, dark, upside-down city.  A negative version of something that nagged at the pilot, just out of memory range.  Something he didn’t recall… but knew that he should have.


    He glided forward on quarter impeller, all weapons charged up and ready, including the terrible null-bomb contained at the heart of every Titan battle-mech.


    -Come- sent the Draugr, speaking as one. -Alone-


    Their blended voice was a chittering, icy whisper.  It scratched at his brain and newly branched circuits.


    (Mental skip.  Contact.  Recognition. Transference.  All contained and shunted aside by V47 as potentially dangerous.)


    Almost certainly, he was flying straight into a death-trap, just like the one at the end of Battle for Arda.  But he was bang out of good options and down to a handful of sacrifice plays.  The Draugr were already charging back up, forging enormous dark cannons, extruding more giant rocks. What else could he do but answer their summons?


    As he crossed space, though, somebody scanned him.  A tingling sensor-wave combed through the pilot from top to toe, reading his particles, engrams and chemical balance.  S434, he thought.  Then S220, all of Rogue Flight and even Cerulean-1.  Every asset on the station, as well, from Flight Control down to the lowliest transport and deck-sweeper.  Everyone scanned and encoded his data; promising life, whatever came next here and now.


    Because they were friends.  Because he mattered.  Because he wasn’t alone.