The World Flying Force Rebellion in the Shadows

Chapter 29 - Drone Fight

"Shit," Krit'ts's words encapsulated my feelings. Dread washed over me, when the first laser bursts hit the plane.

"Go Ta'law!" He added, his words managing to shake me from the shock. Very Slowly, the drone lifted off the floor of the plane. The two drones were still firing away but seemed to be waiting for something to use their missiles.

"They don't want to destroy the 452," I whispered, suddenly sure that was the case.

"The hell are you mumbling? Just fly!" Krit'ts yelled at me.

"They won't blow up the 452, Master Guardian still wants it, I'm gonna lead them far off, so they can get away," I told the group. As soon as I was clear of the door, I hit the throttle hard, pulling the craft almost straight up. That didn't stop the drones behind us. One of them broke off from chasing the 452 and followed our aircraft. The first round of laser bursts hit the drone. Slicing through the metal and passing in between my feet.

"Ta'law, don't let those bullets hit you!" Arwago said over the coms

"Really? Here I was trying to help them with target practice!" I yelled back, Krit'ts laughed loudly and I smiled in spite of myself.

The way the drone responded was much quicker than the simulation. Any slight tap of the control stick made it jump all over the sky. I kept over correcting cause the drone to almost hop all over the sky. Krit'ts had enough

"Get a grip, Ta'law!" Krit'ts was hanging on his seat like he was about to be ejected.

"You wanna fly? No? then shut up!" I yelled at him, which made Zarlique chuckle in the back. Who laughs at a time like this? Both these guys were crazy. The wide swooping motions I had been making, was to get the feel of the drone. After a few swoops with no laser bursts hitting us, I realized it had served two purposes. The enemy drone couldn't hit us if I was flying chaotically. The one drone that was behind me was easily keeping pace with ours, no doubt they would have identical capabilities and that included missiles.

"If we can get both of them away from the 452 for long enough, they can go into stealth mode," Zarlique said. Just as soon as he said it, a loud alarm started blaring throughout the drone. Every button on the pilots control panel was pushed while trying to figure out what it was for. Krit'ts held up the tablet.

"The hell is that?!" Krit'ts pointed to the message 'incoming projectile.' They must have locked on to our drone.

"Roll Ta'law! Roll the drone!" Tesser yelled over the comm. I didn't need to be told twice. The flight stick was yanked hard to the left, it was the same move used in my race with Krit'ts. Only this drone responded much more enthusiastically and rolled twice before we stopped. The second roll was followed by an explosion. The entire drone rocked to the side but recovered quickly. The missile had just missed our propellers. My head was a jumble, and it took a few seconds for things to come more into focus.

"Those are missiles! Don't let them lock on again," Arwago sounded like he knew what he was talking about, even if it was a bit obvious. There wasn't time for the slew of curse words and sarcastic responses that I wanted to give him. My focus had to be on flying.

The drone was still making long swooping motions. On one wide left swoop, the drone went up a little bit too high and the sun temporarily blinded me. The second time I did it, I stayed longer, but with my eyes closed, hoping the other drone was able to see me. No laser fire hit our aircraft, so with the front of the drone angled upwards, our drone shot straight up towards the sun.

"Zar, hit them with the guns!" I heard Krit'ts shout. Zarlique started shooting the guns. I looked back to see if he was even close to hitting them. Each burst of the laser was invisible, the only way to tell if it was hitting its target, would be a reaction from the drone, there was none.