Hyperdrive, a Tails fanfic

Launching The Attack (Fox)

I heard Tails's voice over my comlink almost as soon as we took off. "This is going to take some getting used to... I can't feel what the ship is doing and it's making it really hard to stay focused."

I would have facepalmed if I hadn't needed both hands to control my own craft. "Of course it's making it really hard to stay focused... Arwings have incredibly powerful g-diffusers to handle their maneuverability. Nobody I know ever turns them up to maximum. Whatever untrained mechanic worked on your ship probably forgot and set it to full instead of what the majority of pilots consider to be the highest level. Our standard for new pilots is to make sure that the diffuser works enough so that they don't black out, but yours is set way too high. It's going to feel real floaty for most of this..."

Just then I heard another voice. "Red Leader, standing by."

And more. "Yellow Leader, standing by."

"Green Leader, standing by."

"White Leader, standing by."

I told Tails to switch his comlink to the public channel and did the same for my own. "Blue Leader, standing by."

The final confirmation came. "Orange Leader, standing by."

And then an unexpected one. "Orange One, standing by." It was Lusius. I'd forgotten he was spotting for us.

We were all ready to go. I started giving orders. "Yellow Squadron, you take the rear quadrant. The engines from the command ship give off a signature that messes up their trackers, and your ships are the most lightly armored. Harder to hit. Green Squadron, you're on port side. I suspect that's where the majority of the docks are, and I want to get a look at those. Plus you're the fastest, and the port quadrant is the farthest away. Red Squadron, head to starboard. Your ships are painted similarly to the Saturn, and taking the starboard quadrant will help you blend in. Blue Squadron, divide yourselves up so that each bomber group gets about a quarter of our fighters."

"And us, sir?" That was White Leader (I didn't know their names at the time as a lot of them weren't people I'd ever really met).

"You're coming with me. We need to take out the main support ship."

The squadrons split up, going exactly where I'd hoped they would. Within a minute or two, we'd all arrived where we were supposed to be.

The overwhelming radio chatter began.

"Yellow Leader, in position."

"Green Two, releasing payload."

"Red Five, taking fire."

"Blue One, on it."

I blocked out everything that wasn't important, a trick I'd learned when I first became a commander, and concentrated on my job. "This is Blue Leader. I need all of White Squadron to fall in behind my ship." They did so in perfect formation. "Blue Leader, commencing bomb run."

We dropped down until we were just over the lead support ship. Then my comlink almost exploded with voices.

"White Leader, requesting assistance."

"White Three, taking fire."

"White Seven, going down!"

This isn't good, I thought. "Tails, I need you on my six. We're going to lose this if we're not careful."

"Roger that," he replied. I saw him drop in behind me, flying backwards to cover as much as he could. I wasn't sure where he'd learned that trick, but I was thankful he had. He'd managed to take down a fighter almost as soon as I called him.

I started fighting, knowing that the success of the entire mission could depend on how good me and Tails were. Eggman's drones were going down all around me, splattering like flies under our heavy armament, but so were White Squadron bombers. I issued an emergency order. "White Squadron, release payloads immediately." I didn't hear a single confirmation. "Blue Leader, comms check. You still here, Tails?"

His response came quickly. "Yep. Still here." He sounded a little worn out, but hearing his voice let me know that my comlink wasn't dead.

Which meant that every single White Squadron bomber had been destroyed.

I looked around. I didn't see any other cruisers that weren't destroyed, but the lead one was still in perfect condition. The other squadrons, which were still mostly intact, were flying back to our frigate, seemingly unaware of what was going on.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a white fleck. A single bomber that was still flying, and it had its bay doors open. It was flying over what looked like a critical part of the ship. It might have actually had a chance to destroy the entire cruiser if it was lucky.

I saw its bombs drop.

Then I saw it catch fire. It tore apart, falling to the enemy ship in a smoldering wreck.

The cruiser exploded in a chain reaction, going from the impact site out to basically everywhere else. The bombs must have hit.

"Blue Squadron, fall back. Mission complete."

I heard Tails's voice in my ear again. "This didn't go well at all, did it..."

"Nope," I told him, making sure to switch back to two-way communication.

"Lu did a good job spotting, though."

"Did he?" I didn't want to admit it, but I was pretty sure I'd blocked Lusius's voice out. Maybe... maybe if I'd listened to him, this would have been different. All the other squadrons made it out fine. "I guess I didn't notice..."

We flew back much more slowly than we'd flown out. The hangar was almost empty when we arrived. We'd been docked in the same one as White Squadron.

I landed in the same spot I'd taken off from, shut down the engines, and got out of the ship so I could report back. I saw Tails do the same.

We both headed toward the bridge, rather reluctantly.