Doran
Location: Hilden III
Time: 1135, 6-3 GM, 1335 A.C.
Doran tapped one finger idly against the control stick as he circled the tower, watching the bursts of light indicating small arms fire dance through the windows. The pirates were putting up a good fight, but they were clearly outmatched and, thanks to the few suits of powered armor, outgunned.
âDoran, weâve got ten bogies warping into system and heading your way. Iâm moving my squadron off to engage.â Hezdorâs voice rang through Doranâs headset clearly, and Doran, thanks to years of practice, kept his focus entirely on the tower.
âCopy, Hezdor, good hunting,â he responded. Hezdor ended the chat with an affirmative grunt, and the line went dead.
The feline went back to tapping out the nondescript beat against the control yoke. The dropshipâs variable autopilot was doing most of the work for him at the moment; he hadnât even moved the stick since heâd moved into the circling pattern.
âDoran, weâve got the hostages. Get set to pull us out of here.â
âOn it,â Doran said, a slight sense of glee flooding through him at the prospect of actually being able to move the damn stick himself. He turned it to guide the dropship in to the shattered window of the tower. The landing was at least smoother than the previous one; there was no one to shoot at him any more.
Nonetheless the rest of the Falcons hurried back into the troop bay, guiding or half-carrying hostages in and started to buckle them down. Gear stomped through the door to the cockpit and slid into the copilot seat behind Doran, reaching up and removing her helmet. The sound of the beings in the troop bay behind them was silenced as the door to the cockpit slid shut with a soft hiss, and Doran began making sure the ship was space ready. No enemies within two thousand klicks
He felt a gentle pinch on the tip of his ear. The offended ear twitched, and he turned to glare at Gear, who laughed.
âHave fun practicing your circles in the iron tub?â She said, a teasing lilt in her voice. Doran pretended not to notice the several colors of blood up and down her front.
Doran grinned. âShe may be a tub, but Iâm not the one who stopped to take a bath on the way back.â
She matched his grin, her teeth glistening white. âI like you. Careful about what you find in your shower later, new blood.â
âI think this bloodâs older than you give it credit for,â Doran said, turning back to face the front as the diagnostics finished and green lights went on. He tilted his head back and forth, suppressing a shiver down his spine.
Gear opened her mouth to respond, but then almost bit her tongue off as the dropshipâs engines slammed to full throttle and Doran pushed the control stick as far forward as it would go.
There was a whistling and then a shrieking sound like death itself as two missiles rocketed in from starboard and passed where the dropship had just been, narrowly missing the fully loaded craft.
âFighters!â Doran yelled as Gear gritted her teeth, her hands reflexively grabbing the armrests of her seat as the dropship accelerated to full speed, her nose pointed straight down.
At the very last second Doran pulled back on the stick and tugged it to port, leveling the dropship out. The fighters screamed by them overhead and broke away from each other, starting to circle back around. Doran didnât even try to fire the dropshipâs chingun; the rotary cannon was designed for laying down suppressing fire on infantry, and they were already several klicks away.
âYou going to get us out of here?â Gear called out over the scream of engines as Doran pulled back on the stick, the dropship starting to climb upwards.
âQuiet, Iâm working!â He called back to her as the fighters starting closing back in. The lock-on alarm blared. The first missiles had been dumb-fired, the fighters hoping to catch the dropship unawares. Now they were no longer messing around. Doran knew that they would have already fired, there being no real reason to wait around to kill your prey.
So he completed the long loop back up the tower and aimed the dropshipâs nose straight in at it. Gear swore a blue streak and just clamped down harder on the armrests as the dropship tore through the office tower, vibrating as metal ceiling ground against the top of the ship.
The alarm intensified as the missiles closed in, and Doran slammed on the port side pedal and then the starboard one, skidding the dropship around the central column that made up the central maintenance and transportation portion of the tower. Then he mentally crossed his fingers and prayed to every damn deity he could recall...
It worked. The missiles exploded, tearing through the central column of the tower. The fighters may have had stealth on their side, but their missiles were not equipped with expensive sensor packaging. They could track around most solid targets, but the towerâs central core, like most skyscrapers, was constructed of a low-density but incredibly strong plastic, reinforced with titanium-alloy rods. It didnât read as a solid object to be avoided by the missilesâ sensors, and so theyâd slammed into it at speed.
Dust and chunks of building rained around them as Doran pulled back on the throttle, keeping his foot on the pedal. His sensors also may not scan the central column properly, but they could still pick up a stealth-equipped fighter with dust and debris pinging off it.
He fired before he could even see it. The chingun was indeed designed for countering ground forces, but there isnât much of a difference between tank armor and fighter armor, especially not at a mere 200 meters. The fighters shields evaporated, and the smoking ship began an arc downwards.
Doran tugged the stick as the dropship was jostled. The other fighter roared by mere meters away, catching its prey in its slipstream.
Without any other real options, Doran turned the dropship and gave chase to the fighter. The dropshipâs engines allowed him to match its speed, even if he couldnât close with it to finish off the fighter with the chingun.
Doran reached up and tapped the comm screen, opening a channel to Hezdor. âBoss, got a problem here!â
There was a grunt and an âon my way,â and the channel went dead.
Doran returned his focus to staying on the fighterâs tail. He couldnât kill it and he couldnât out fly it now, but he sure as hell was going to keep the bastard busy for a couple minutes.
Out on the flat desert, there wasnât much of anywhere to fly. The fighter dove and climbed and dodged and jinked, but Doran kept on him, one thumb on the trigger.
Finally the fighter did the most simple thing he could: He straightened out his flight path, pointed his nose at the horizon, and rammed his engines to full. Doran cursed as the fighter started to pull away from him, the agile craft easily outdoing his transport ship. He too fed juice into the engines, trying to keep pace as best he could for as long as possible...
The fighter dropped all engine power and stood on its tail, using the entire fuselage of the craft as one giant airbrake. It bled speed fast, and Doran narrowly avoided smashing into it as he slammed the dropship on its side and pulled up on the stick, also closing up the throttle to essentially pull the same maneuver. The dropship, however, had a much narrower profile than the fighter, and so went sailing right passed it.
Doran pulled up on the stick more to finish turning the dropship in a 180 and leveled her out, feeling his gut fall into his legs.
For a split second his dropship and the fighter stared at each other, no more than fifty meters apart. Doran didnât even really register the lock-on alarm that sounded the death knell.
And then the fighter exploded, followed immediately by the delayed chatter of railgun fire. Hezdorâs ship sailed almost lazily overhead, and the channel opened up.
âYou scratched up the paint on my dropship.â
Doran sank back into his seat as Gear whooped. Sheâd spent the entire four and half minutes the fight had taken hanging on for dear life, alternately grinning through clenched teeth and cursing. Doran set the dropship to hover as Hezdor circled, then pulled off his headgear and turned to face her, winking.
âI find anything weird in my shower after that, Iâm leaving you behind.â
Gear just smirked and winked back. âIâm not weird, am I?â
















