Iron Phoenix

A Miracle's Worth

The main screen in front of her lit up, showing the location of the core and her relative position. Kana's adrenaline shot through the roof as she wrenched the controls upwards, arriving at Jackson's side in a burst of speed. As they assumed their diamond formation, Roth's voice came through her headset. "Let's try and finish this before it reaches the bay and this becomes a total nightmare. Use attack pattern three."

As the radio crackled off, Kana began. Heart racing and without a backwards glance, she pulled into a stall turn, sending herself racing downwards, the world turning to a blur of colours.

Attack pattern three was a surprise attack. Its aim was to take out the goliath's arms – and therefore its weapons – before it registered their presence. Kana ran this through her head as she raced downwards, focused only on her next move. As her speed built up, she gripped the controls tightly, her knuckles turning white. Just as she raced past the thing's shoulder, she pulled the jet up and forward, deploying her plasma sabres at the exact same moment, using the momentum to make a clean cut. She'd never felt anything so extreme. The tremendous force pressed her back into her seat, and she fought to keep her arms steady. The second of pure, primal struggle seemed to stretch on for eternity before she was speeding out of the other side, relief flooding through her body.

As she turned around though, her heart sank. The arm that was supposed to have been cut clean off was still there, hanging by a small piece of flesh towards the front of the shoulder. It was useless for now, but regeneration would take mere minutes. A slight miscalculation. She had deployed her blades a fraction of a second too late. She cursed her nerves, but as she turned to her right, her heart dropped to her boots. Barrelling towards her, plasmic blades brandished threateningly, was the other arm.

Why? She didn't even have time to think as she frantically dove for her life, the G force of the sudden turn causing black spots to dance across her vision. She pulled to the side, desperately trying to escape its reach as she felt the heat of thousand degree plasma pass just above her head. What she couldn't escape, however, was the gust of air created as the colossal arm swiped above her, the immense force sending her tumbling around like a rag doll. She cried out as her right arm was wrenched to the side with titanic force, pain blinding her as she tumbled over and over, downwards and down-. No!, her mind screamed, do something! With a herculean effort, she pulled to the left, her arm screaming from the strain, steadying herself.

Her breath heaving, she looked out to see that she was barely ten metres from the cliffside. The striped, crumbly rock sparkling slightly in the sunlight as if to taunt her. Kana felt sick. She had been ten metres – at that speed, she thought for a second, running the numbers, point four seconds away – from becoming a crimson splat on the cliffside. Shaking slightly, she gingerly moved upwards, out of the thing's reach for good, wincing as the movement sent shots of pain through her arm. She prayed it wasn't broken.

As she got safely out of reach and started to get her panicked breaths under control, Jackson's furious voice exploded in her ear. "What in the hell was that supposed to be, Bartlett? How are you supposed to coordinate an attack with Canberra without talking! Did they not teach you communication in the Cadets, or are you that stupid? How-"

He was cut off and an oppressive silence filled the air. With a sinking feeling, Kana realised her mistake. Too focused on her own flying, she had completely forgotten about the other components of the attack. This wasn't the simulator anymore. Rico wasn't as predictable as those planes that seemed to fly around on rails. Kana groaned at her own stupidity; this was the real world now.

With a sigh, the radio silence was broken. "Well, so much for a surprise attack." It was Roth, and he was not happy. "Jackson, calm down. You're not helping. Bartlett, are you still operational?"