Asylonia

2. The Battle of Attilia

II.

The United Earth Force Jet Fighter IV ship avoided the wrath of an oncoming missile by ducking deep beneath an insatiable comet. Undeterred, the missile turned on itself and gave chase. The pilot led it back towards the flaming jaws of the comet, then shot from harms way at the last possible second, feeding the comet's voracious hunger with the missile's unstoppable momentum.

Jet Fighter IV traversed two burning stars and fired at the row of Attilian battlecruisers. A single shot blistered the engine of the lead ship and sent it crashing into the one beside it. In turn, the second ship pummelled a third, and down they went. The pilot grinned, admiring his handy work, watching the row of ships toppling like titanium-plated dominos.

He had already begun to imagine the Welcome Home party. They would fall over themselves to be near him, showering him with praise, sincere in their insistence that such sheer, natural born talent had not been seen among the battlefields of space since Wing Commander Alan Attreus had last led the Jet Fighter fleet to countless victories. There would be a lavish ceremony for him in a grand ballroom a million miles away from the dim-lit world of his cockpit.

The pilot punched the air. Beyond his screen, battlecruisers tumbled into the waiting mouth of an inferno.

His celebration was cut short by the sight of an Attilian Stealth Warrior charging forward. A powered exoskeleton suit encased the creature's enormous limbs, allowing him to race through the dead air of space in streak of metallic red and silver. The fuel pack strapped to his spine shot scarlet flames into the atmosphere. His guns shot through the debris of defeated battlecruisers.

'Oh no you don't,' the pilot laughed.

He sent his craft screeching round on its axis. Its tail cracked the stealth warrior upside the head, knocking his fuel pack from his armour. Without it, the warrior hung in the air, floating as aimlessly as the distant stars.

'Eat dirt, slime ball!' The pilot yelled in triumph. Lips twisting into a cocksure grin, he projected his ship towards the mass of fire that had devoured his opponents. A second fleet of battlecruisers dove upon him with a barrage of fire. Pulling out one of his favourite tricks, he avoided their blows by heading straight towards the inferno, flying beneath it, then soaring up and over it, and the battlecruisers, in a loop, rolling upside down as he did so until he was positioned behind them. It was a move meant to confuse and disorientate the enemy as much as it was to place himself in a better attacking position. Leaving the Atillians dumbfounded, he fired a shot into one ship and created another domino run of battlecruisers, all sailing into the belly of the fire.

A deafening silence filled the vast battleground. Carefully, the pilot moved into an upright position and rotated his ship three hundred and sixty degrees to get a better look at the wasteland around him. All was quiet. Calm prevailed. The enemy soldiers had all been destroyed, swallowed by the heat of a fire which raged on in the heart of space as a warning to the enemies of United Earth:

This is what happens when you mess with us.

And then a thud. A scorching, scraping noise which pounded the eardrums and ripped a gash in the roof of the Jet Fighter.

The pilot's stomach bounced into his dry throat. His white knuckles strained over the yoke. With a deft flick of a switch, his view changed. Outside, a second stealth warrior introduced himself. The creature had hacked his way through the dense atmosphere of the Madromedelia galaxy and crept up along the rear of the ship, tearing his way through the hull. The pilot tucked his chin into his chest plate, dodging the Attilian claws dancing inches above. He hammered on the thrusters, brought the yoke to his stomach and sent the ship nosediving towards the edge of the Attilian base's gravitational field.