Assignment: Avalon

Chapter Sixteen: Battle in the Sky

Melodan's guns raked the trailing plane from tail to nose, and it faltered, then disintegrated, scattering wreckage the length of the valley. An instant later she was on the leader, but he reacted quickly, nosing down, then whipping skyward in the classic half-loop-and-roll known as an Immelman. Melodan followed suit—and her Immelman was tighter. Her opponent was still inverted when her guns found his engine and flame engulfed him.

Melodan shredded black smoke with a quick victory roll, started to ease down to a landing—then abruptly accelerated. She wasn't done yet; not while the skies were clear of Skyforce and Groundforce was still approaching.

"Where are you going?" Rand demanded in her earphones.

"To greet our visitors!" Melodan replied. She roared over the peak.

Still some kilometres from the top of the pass, she found the Groundforcers, at least three hundred of them, struggling upwards in ragged columns. Some waved as she dove toward them, mistaking her plane for one of those that had flown over them to the attack only minutes before. She smiled grimly and opened fire.

For a long moment every face below turned toward her in open-mouthed horror, then the columns disintegrated as men and women scrambled for cover or were cut down. Melodan whipped the plane around for a second pass, though this time there were few targets. More holes appeared in her wings and she fled before the missiles could come out, dropping to a smooth landing on the improvised strip.

She leaped out of the plane almost before it stopped rolling, grinning savagely and feeling more like a gung-ho space pilot than she had in weeks.

But the congratulations that followed from the rest of the Free Forcers began to sound hollow in her ears as the scouts reported on Groundforce's continuing advancement, and she realized how little she had accomplished. And as she sat beside Tor's pallet with Kyla that evening, she wondered how many of the Groundforcers she'd fired on likewise sat beside their wounded friends or grieved their dead ones. They're no different from Tor, she thought. They're just teks drafted from some farm or fishing commune. They're just following orders. They don't deserve to die any more than he does.

It was an uncomfortable thought, one that had never come to her at the Academy. She wondered if her father had ever felt the same way about the men he killed. Thinking back now on some of the things he'd said—or hadn't said—about his combat experience, she was suddenly sure he had.

Night fell with Groundforce camped just beyond the peak. Melodan knew that when Skyforce returned there would be more than two pilots, and they would no longer expect to find the plane helpless.

Before going to bed, she stood in front of the caves, staring up at the stars pricking the sky, and wondered if her message had even reached the Rebels. What was happening out there? Where was the Preceptor? Where was the Rebel fleet?

Where was her father?

Was her only accomplishment ensuring that all the Free Forcers died like Vik and Tor?

He's not dead yet! she told herself angrily. And neither are you! Now get up there and do your job. What kind of fighter pilot are you, anyway?

Then she had to grin a little, because the traditional answer to that question at the Academy was, "The best damn pilot in the galaxy, sir!"

You bet, she thought, and as though suddenly bathed in cool water, felt her doubts wash away. Maybe she could have done some things differently. Well, that was always true. But she had done the best she could, and now faced the focus of her narrowing options. She would fly, and fight—live, or die. The time for choices was past.