Failure's Flee

Impyrial Flight Academy flunkie Jarek Mandir spun wildly out of control in his stolen ZX11 starfighter. He’d only just breached Urial’s upper atmosphere and entered the void when the Military Police had begun firing on him.

He’d never intended to experience the bitter cold of the vacuum, but with each plasma blast that scored the hull of his sleek ship the terrifying prospect became more and more a possibility. He was pursued by three Impyrial R9s, the bulkier starfighters were less maneuverable than Jarek’s stolen 11, but packed with far superior firepower.

His training at the Academy had only just met its untimely demise. When he’d learned of his imminent discharge, he’d walked casually to the launch pad, primed his favorite ZX11–an M model with a turbocharger and an experimental light-skip drive engine–and taken off without clearance or permission from the tower. His Xenoquithi upbring would have never let him graduate the Academy anyway, his insurrectionist conscience too deeply ingrained into his rebellious heritage.

He’d nicknamed the compact ship Betty after the cute mechanic he’d never had the guts to talk to. But that didn’t matter now, nothing would matter if the Military Police blew him out of the sky.

Attempting to break free of his uncoordinated spiral, Jarek jacked his throttle to idle, threw his ailerons neutral and slammed his rudder in the opposite direction of the uncoordinated spin. Betty flattened the spiral, though he still plunged through Urial’s frigid atmosphere, the brilliant orange and red of reentry burning up on his hull. Jarek slowly brought the elevators into a positive position, adding full throttle he ripped the stolen 11 from the plunge as the frozen slate surface of the planet loomed in his cockpit’s viewport.

Sliding parallel to the rocky ground, Jarek skimmed just meters above the gray soil, crimson lasfire peppered the stone around him. Spinning about, he flew into a strong tailwind hoping it’d give him the extra boost he’d need to outrun the R9s. On the horizon loomed one of the hundreds of mountain ranges lining the bitter planet. Flecked green with thick perennial forests and snowcapped, the jagged peaks pierced the sky, stark daggers to the flat plains of the rest of the planet.

Jarek blasted toward the looming hills, he could probably lose the R9s in the open, but he wouldn't lose them fast enough. The military police continued firing away, scarlet explosions surrounded his ship regardless of the evasive maneuvers flew. He hoped the R9 pilots wouldn't be foolish enough to follow him into the mountain range, if he didn’t lose them there he never would.

Scud running the rolling hills that soon turned into the sharp shale and towering basalt peaks, he flipped his ZX11 on its horizontal axis and zipped into a slot canyon. Shredding through cavernous hallways of stone, ripping through the chasms, his radar showed two R9s following close behind him through the narrow rock walls, the third had flown above the peaks. Damn.

He could work with it. Jarek turned around a jagged peak, a mercury river ran through the valley’s base below, its mirrored sheen reflecting the underside of his twin winged 11 as he programmed his ship for attack.

Cruising over a wide canyon, Jarek spun about and opened fire on the R9s, he’d hoped to be able to outrun the boys in blue, he’d hoped they might blow themselves to bits on the stone peaks he’d flown through, he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to go on the offensive, hell he’d hoped to pass his exams at the Academy too for that matter. But if the Military Police were willing to shoot him down, he’d have to match that negative energy right back. Crimson lasfire erupted from the twin cannons on the wings of his 11, aimed not at, but above the R9s. Rock exploded from the canyon walls to shower over the police ships.

Boulders crashed down, one of the starfighters was crushed almost instantly, Jarek could only imagine his screams as the big ship fell into the mercury river below. He’d never had any trouble killing enemy fighters in the sim, but doing so in person, killing men who were only doing their jobs, men he probably knew, he found his mouth filled with the bitter taste of regret.

His remorse was quelled as an R9 launched missiles his way. Inverting his 11, Jarek narrowly missed the screaming projectiles. They detonated upon a spire just behind him, the explosive buffet rocking Betty. Too close. His composure barely held.

Ignoring his fear, Jarek spun again, bringing his cannons to bear on his pursuer, the ships flew at each other with killing intent. Jarek dove at the last minute then brought the nose of his 11 up so fast the stall warning horn blared in his headset. He held the nose straight up toward the everblack abyss of space, g forces pinned him deep into his seat. As his vision began to fade and he felt the shuddering beginnings of a stall he ripped his 11 around into a dive, raining lasfire on the R9 still struggling to climb in pursuit.

The larger ship exploded in a shower of metal and flame.

Holy shit I did it, I’m free!

He tried to ignore the fact that in one afternoon he’d gone from Academy failure to committing high treason against the Empyre, and murder. Jarek’s 11 buffeted, rocking him so hard had he not been wearing the Impyrial issued pilot helm he would surely have been knocked unconscious.

Damn. He’d forgotten about the third R9.

It appeared the third had called for backup as three new ships loomed on his radar. Red lasfire rained down on him. They lit his ass up, vengeance for the death of their comrades fueling their flurry of fire. Frantically dodging and diving, Jarek’s controls bucked in his hands. His shields wouldn’t hold much longer against the onslaught. He had to get out of atmosphere.

A sea of smaller blips appeared on his radar, not more ships, missiles.

Damn.

Jarek looped about in an attempt to get the heat seeking incendiaries to track each other, they were too fast. The projectiles struck his experimental light-skip engine, and Jarek met death not only a failure of the Academy, but a failure to escape.

“Nice shooting, Ted.” Commander Bill Riggins said over their com channel as Jarek Mandir and his stolen Impyrial ZX11 vaporized, bursting into the rainbow colors of the cosmos. The drive engine imploded inwards, then erupted in a megaton atomic explosion of expanding plasma and shrapnel, the explosive buffet rocked the R9s despite how far behind the Academy flunkie they were.

The Military Policemen just stared in awe and horror at the lightshow of explosive power, Commander Riggins wondered what would happen if a full scale drive engine on an Impyrial dreadnought was destroyed. Wipe out a moon? Destroy an entire planet? Make a sun go supernova? Certainly not the last, but the potential destructive consequences that one of those engines held was substantial.

“Hey fellas,” Riggins said, “guess we should tell those engineers their new engine still needs some work.”

The three other pilots only laughed as they spun their R9s around and reentered Urial’s cold lower atmosphere.