Page 42 of Starfighter’s Salvation

I flew us into the ravine. Within seconds, we were taking plasma fire. I activated comms to report the attack, but no one answered.

Fuck. We were already being jammed.

The Ferros Trench was made of towering walls of red stone and black shadows more than a mile deep. Dust struck the ship's hull like tossed gravel, and each time one of their cannons hit us, the energy pulse came up through the flight seats to rattle our teeth.

"Man, this ship really is built like a tank." Gina leaned forward and checked her control panel. "Nothing on fire yet. We're lucky they aren't using missiles."

I didn't want to tempt fate by agreeing with her.

“Contact left,” I said. “Brace.”

The first burst passed under the port wing. The second hit the rock wall and filled the canopy with debris. Gina gasped. “Was that their version of hello?”

“Yes.”

“Rude.”

“Hold on.” Xenon had no breathable atmosphere outside its domed cities. Rust-colored ground stretched for thousands of kilometers, broken by old mining scars and the remains of Dark Fleet occupation sites. The Ferros Tench was the largest scar, and I maneuvered us through it at twice the speed I should have. Didn't have much choice. Two enemy batteries sat on opposite canyon rims just ahead of us. Both were moving, spinning around to target us, just waiting for us to get close enough to destroy. Worse, they were at the top of a rocky outcropping the command team had instructed us to use for cover.

Captain Wroxxon had been right, they were expecting us. It was a trap. But knowing didn’t change the mission. We still had people in this trench, people who were going to die if we didn't get to them.

“Two batteries,” I told Gina as I pointed out the automatic cannons. “They're going to try to catch us in a crossing pattern. We're going lower.”

“How low?”

I dropped the rescue ship in a vertical line and the very bottom of the trench rushed toward us.

“Never mind,” She clung to her seat as the we descended so quickly her harness was the only thing keeping her in her seat. "Who needs a rollercoaster?"

The ship wasn’t designed to fly and spin and dance like a fighter. She carried armor, medical equipment, and enough lift to move a team of Titan pilots in full gear. She was fast, but not graceful. I had flown her long enough to know exactly how hard I could push her without breaking things.

The first battery discharged, walking a stream of plasma fire along the trench floor. I rolled the ship against the west wall. Rock passed close enough to scrape paint from the lower plate.

The second battery fired at the space above us, where it expected the first round of fire would force us to climb. I stayed low. “Hard left,” I warned.

I turned into an unmarked feeder canyon with barely enough room for the wings to clear. Gina swore. The translation was impressively vulgar. I chuckled as enemy fire crossed behind us. Rock dust leaked through the filters until the cockpit air tasted faintly of iron, but we were safe for a minute, maybe two before this feeder dumped us back into the main trench.

“My stomach wants to file a formal complaint,” she said.

“It may do so after landing.”

“Against you personally.”

“Understood.”

The feeder canyon returned us to the trench, and I kept the ship safely below the batteries’ firing angles. I accelerated toward our target, and their jamming technology enveloped us completely. Not just communications now. The ship's sensors failed one at a time. Navigation. Targeting. Landing assist. I flew us over rocks and around corners based on the survey scans I'd memorized the night before and pure instinct. The ship’s altitude display went blank.

“We lost all our sensors,” Gina said.

“I know.”

“Oh my god. This is worse than I thought. Can you see?”

“Yes.” Well enough.

“That’s not what the display says.”

“Good thing it's not flying the ship.”