Project Devilgama

Ten

"Initiating the airborne formation, guys," Hannev spoke, his hands scrambling on the console. "Alright, all flyers, this is Sparrow One with the highly valuable person and the whole damn thing. Presence check ... All confirmed zero absence. Initiate airborne formation!"

The sparsely flown vessels began to form into a grouped flock. One by one, they gradually drifted towards the Sparrow One. They kept their distance and fleeted together in the formation. "Beautiful, Hann," May exclaimed.

Mhaz was casually playing with Farad in the back, he had tried to give many random audio commands merely to take some science get-to-know from the search engine into his mind. "Hey Farad, when was the first woolly mammoth cloned?" He finally asked his tenth inquiry to the machine.

"6th of July, 2084." The Farad answered plainly with its robotic voiceover.

"Wow, how does it work?" Mhaz continued.

"Man, she's bored with all those kinds of stuff you asked." May teased, "Go get your eyes shut. Skip some hours."

Mhaz had a pleasant time discussing with the robot. But out of all question, he held one unutterable. He wasn't shy, there was a mysterious feeling that made him unable to put words into a completely senseful sentence. It had deposited into an uncomfortable clump inside his mind.

"Damn it!" Hannev suddenly scoffed.

"What's that?"

"Sparrow Nineteen's got a missile lockdown. Northwest quadrant."

"Repeat?"

The notice sprang Mhaz off his squat. He scooted to the side windowpane, May and Hannev gathered to have a peek. Seen small in Mhaz's sight was a protruding white smoke that grew taller from the ground up to the sky at an accelerating pace. He could see it curving a little, kind of adjusting its direction towards the formation of vessels.

Somewhere in the air, reaching halfway through, the flaming tail of the boosters vanished. In the same moment, the smoke trail have stopped getting higher. The missile have lost in bare sight.

Then boom! A fiery blast hit one of the vessels.

"Nineteen to One, we're on fire! I repeat, we're burning down!" a cracking voice barked out of the communicator.

"This is a kill zone." May gasped, anxious. "God is great."

"Sparrow One to all vessels, we're passing by a kill zone. Stay tight and standby, we are activating the forcefield countermeasure." Hannev delivered a tense command. "I repeat, just don't scatter around!"

"This is Twenty-Five, we're hit! We're hit!"

"Freakin' shiz!"

"Two going down!"

"All vessels, this is a kill zone. We got missiles and possible Anti-air Rail Cannons. Change your course to the NE!"

It was a party of deadly and devastating fireworks. Blasts in all directions, uncountable curving pillars of white emerged on the surface, in succesion. Hidden below the settlements on the dry land and bald mountain range, they launched their ambush.

"Mhaz, get back to the seat and strap yourself on! I need to pull this bird off the area."

Mhaz was quick to insert himself back into the rugged costumes on the seat, but this time was not pressurized after all. Hannev took over the manual control and prepared for the maneuver by the steering yoke. He yanked it towards the right, and the vessel sharply turned. Then left, another vessel was on its drop-down ahead, ablaze. Sudden aerial explosions popped out of nowhere, unpredictably. The pilot attempted his best on the evasions, betting on his dearest life and the entire corporation.

But a piercing, desperate shout of bad luck was heard beside Mhaz. This vessel now being locked on.

"Isn't there any darn way to save our bottom?!" Mhaz spoke.

May said, the countermeasure could not be deployed without collective activation. But Hannev believed, there were still hopes.

Hannev yanked the yoke immediately. The vessel pulled upwards, on a steep stall. It then proceeds to finish a full circular maneuver that gave Mhaz a hit of dizziness. And thrusters turned off by initiation, putting the whole vehicle into a vertical downfall. The red blinks and beeps on the console finally ceased to light. But it was all too short for a sigh of relief.

Boom!

A searing hot white cloud puffed inside the cabin in companion to the shooting metal debris and torn pieces from the back. High pressure floods in. Fire bloomed inwards, frying the thick air that engulfed the people. The tremendous shock by the concoction of the sudden maneuver and a blast erupted in Mhaz. He even had no time to look behind at where the vessel was hit.

"AAaahh!"

The vessel came down like a burning space rock through the atmosphere. Black smoke and fire plume out of the destructed rear of the chassis. "This is One, we're going down!" Hannev blew a full cry out.

"Brace for impact!" May shouted, "Hann, ready to turn the levitator on just right before we hit the ground."

The vehicle had plummeted on a nose dive.

And the machine began to speak again: "Reaching an altitude of 2000 meters,"

...1500 meters,"

...1000 meters,"

...500 meters,"

Touching the ground in ten seconds."

"Hit it, Hann!"