Stars ablaze

Watch your six

"Move in position!", the words were almost methodical. Still research had shown that fighters were more urged to follow the routine by being commanded more sternly.
"Alpha Squadron get your pattern fixed on the lift side of the bogey", the AI center commanded. Allares was not too keen on these synthetic demands by a machine that did only calculations. She was sure the I'Lastask nervous system was faster than most other species and for sure the quantum computers the humans had brought into the consortium. She had already decided that the best option would be to round through one of the clouds to the right, then curve back with two tailers, to the enemy horde. She grunted.
"What shall we do Allares?", G'Ioren asked her on a private channel. Private didn't mean a channel that was simply not read by others from the group, but G'Ioren was a supersmart wizkid who happened to follow Allares everywhere, who had actually set up a channel that even the AI couldn't breach, if they knew about it.
"We go a different route. Let the group take down the left side, we take out the center back, making sure they run off with the tail between their legs...only issue will be...there is no running off, because we will cut them off.", she gasped with a laughter in her voice.
"Affirmative", the two tailers of Allares complied. The Augmented interface of the glasses she used to steer the ship showed an incoming projectile. She immediately pressed a button with her left hand and entered a command with the flow of her eye focus. The ship manouvred out of the way of the projectile that seemed to have some sense of heatseeking, as it curved towards Allares' ship when it passed. G'Ioren shreeked over the channel: "Mine! I got it!", then a flash was seen and G'Ioren started to laugh insanely over the communication.
"You go girl", Mel yelled. She had been quiet up to now, but as she passed Allares' ship, she waved at them. Then her ship dropped towards the planet's surface, curving after the dive to round up again. Allares was always amazed at how Mel was able to steer in any condition and surrounding, while *only* being human. True, she had the general augmentations that came with the territory. One of the training missions had cost her her left arm. She now had a bionic replacement that had near perfect organic feel. It had not made Mel less at commanding the ship as it was more direct neural interfacing anyway. Her ability to do mental gymnastics gave her lots of possibilities to adapt to circumstances. "Visual confirmation with target", G'Ioren suddenly barked over the line. "Calculating chase pattern", Allares fell in immediately. "Mel, take coordinates 274, o983, vector 34,20", she added. A burst of the exhaust showed that Mel had already understood when Allares had started the numbering. "Yihaaw", Mel yelled as her ship cut the observable space in two. Bursts of white lasers ended up in a sparkle of light as the shields of the Sk'armak ships got hit. The ships of the Sk'armak were strong, but terribly slow. That this species could have figured out FTL drive and rampage the universe was something many wondered about. But, as they did, many didn't really think about it too long. Once such a fleet of recogned power entered your atmosphere, you were more aimed at survival than philosophizing how they got so strong. One of the ships got hit by another set of lasers. This time G'Ioren had joined in and the enemy ship suddenly came to a halt. It started to shake strangely, as if a magnifying glass was put on it and moved back and forward. Then the hull broke and the ship was violently shattered outward.
"Bull's eye!", they yelled in unison.
"Get ready and not cocky", Mel said, being serious again immediately. Allares loved the focus that this human could show. When they were off duty, Mel was like a butterfly, but now in battle, she would sting as sharp as a bee.