Who Mourns for Giordano?
Jim wrestled with the fighter's controls, forcing it into a suicidal dive towards the Stone Guard encampment. It amazed him that imminent self-destruction didn't even cause the blood to pound in his ears. True, his body was being subjected to all kinds of physical strain from g-forces and the violent jostling of the craft as it careened through unstable air under the guidance of inexperienced hands, but months of conditioning mitigated these stresses. What he marveled at during the interstitial moments between flying and fighting was the fact that a shroud of calm had enveloped him, the opposite of what he would have expected while in battle. None of the fear and panic and subsequent emotional numbness of the Standing Rock now colored his feelings.
Inevitability does that to a mind he mused as he dived.
As Jim neared the military base he fingered the hot-button and sprayed the area with projectiles, whatever had been in the tubes. He did little damage as he had no idea what he was doing, and had to pull up at the last possible second to avoid crashing into the harbor. When he looked over his shoulder he saw how ineffectual his attack had been, but he also caught sight of a slow moving hovercraft with command insignia and a flag.
“Skyler, you human turd!” he spat, unaware he had bumped his mic on.
The Commander had just signaled for his fighters to return to base when this sacrilegious oath accosted his ears.
“Who is this?” he shouted back.
The g's Jim was pulling prevented him from responding for a few seconds.
“Well, it ain't the fucking Easter Bunny,” he retorted as he struggled to aim his aircraft back towards his own personal demon.
“Back off, Infidel, or prepare to die.”
“Been ready for that for ever since Standing Rock, asshole.”
Commander Skyler had no idea who this maniac was, or how he could have escaped his storied attack on the Indian heathen in South Dakota. Stalling for time he spoke warily,
“Were you there?”
“Damn straight, sphincter boy. It was something like this.”
Jim had aligned his fighter with the hovercraft and was leaning hard on the weapon stud. A cloud of smart projectiles tore down at Skyler's vehicle but swerved to avoid hitting the 'friendly'; however, they tore up the ground underneath it in a fountain of hot, gooey mud, scorched foliage, and whizzing boulders that were not shy about striking the CnC and coating it with muck.
“Manbow, get back here on the double,” Skyler growled into the mic, then to his attacker, “You haven't a chance, heathen scum. You cannot fire successfully on this vehicle and my pilots will be here within minutes to send you to Hell.”
Jim was momentarily perplexed by the uselessness of his volley as he zoomed over Skyler's now filthy hovercraft and banked around for another pass, but controlling his fighter took too many resources to be frustrated for long. As he climbed awkwardly through the patchy Pacific clouds, struggling with the unfamiliar interface, he glanced toward Rugged Mountain and saw the squadron Skyler had recalled cresting the peak. Right then and there Jim accepted the decision the dire circumstances had dictated.
“Like I said,” he whispered into the open mic, “I've been ready since Standing Rock.”
Jim bet that, although the bullets might be smart, his plane wasn't all that bright. He heeled his Avenge fighter over and dived. Jim hit the weapons button on his way down, but it was practically out of boredom as he closed the vertical distance between himself and the Stone Guard hovercraft.
Skyler, blinded by the dirt and mud that covered his windows, could only follow the trajectory of his attacker by sensor, and went profoundly ashen when its projected path suddenly intersected his own.
“Move this fucking thing!” he screamed at the driver, but even its massive engines couldn't overcome the hovercraft's inertia quickly enough.
A split second before impact one word wafted out of Skyler’s communicator, not hurried, not sad—just a name.