Iron Phoenix

Skyreach

Kana glanced ahead at her looming target. A class two goliath, easily thirty metres in height gazed back at her with indifference. To it, she was little more than a fly, circling overhead in her jet. At this range, it wouldn't even bother to attack.

Her eyes flitted around, doing final checks of the instrument readouts while keeping an eye on her reference points in the formation. As the squad of four pulled out of a final banking turn, she flicked a switch, changing the cockpit into close combat configuration. Letting go of the joystick, she slipped her arms into the hoops of the dual controls and glanced over at the golden plasma sabres now extending from each wing. A confident smile crept onto her lips as she rolled the jet over and dove towards the ground, pulling up mere seconds before crashing.

Weaving between the goliath's legs now, she noted the positions of the other jets which were – of course – not doing anything too useful. Still, Kana recognized their attack pattern and angled the jet upwards, quickly going over her plan. The mission, as always, was to destroy the core – a goliath's one weak point, which, as her computer was now telling her, was rather inconveniently located in the centre of its chest. She flipped on the pinpointing system as she raced upwards, metres from its face, and quickly rolled as it shot a burst of air towards her in response. Feeling a slight tug on her forearm as the surrounding turbulence rattled the ailerons, she set her face in firm focus. It had finally noticed her. Time to go.

She dove and weaved, looping around its massive body in a series of tight, well-practiced manoeuvres. Its own plasmic blades were out in force now, threatening to tear her apart with thousands of degrees of heat. Still, she continued, antagonizing it further with her incessant movement. Flicking her wrists furiously and simultaneously pulling up with her forearms, she pulled the jet into a loop, giving her plasma sabres enough momentum to slice the thing's arm clean off. Without pausing to look, she shot upwards once more, barging past a jet circling around above. She knew she had to act fast if she wanted to destroy the core before that arm regenerated. She circled above, just out of reach, baiting it, inviting it to come and knock her out of the sky. "C'mon...", she muttered, "C'mon."

Finally, it took the bait, giving in to rage as monsters always did. Its other arm punched upwards, ready to take out this annoyance once and for all. But in that instant, Kana had disappeared, vertically diving towards the earth, eyes glued to the pinpointing system. She steadied her arms as the numbers counted down, a laser focus on her timing – a second early could mean losing the energy needed to drive through the core. In an instant, she thrust her wrists forward, her speed decreasing as the plasma sabres made contact with the armoured skin just above the core. As she sliced down, lights flashing, sparks dancing around the outside of the cockpit, engines burning on full, the speed held out. She had done it.

It was all over within seconds. As the core was cleanly bisected, Kana pulled a steep bank and whizzed to the side, avoiding the towering mass as it crumpled to the ground.

The simulation flickered. Kana bashed the side of the helmet before tearing it off completely, leaving only the dingy booth in the cadet building. Piece of junk, she thought as she pulled up the analytics on a screen in front of her. Still, she couldn't help but grin as she read down the scores. Her fastest time yet and with an accuracy score of 98.2 – for her last time on the simulator, she had certainly gone out with a bang. It would even replace her last record on the Cadet Network. Smiling, she carefully peeled off the headset and let her hair fall back into its usual position. She had re-shaved the channel into her hair the night before and the skin was still irritating her. Despite the annoyances it caused, Kana wore the pilot's hairstyle with pride. Just like the ring of bruises on her forearms from the dual controls, the odd-looking channel shaved into their hair was considered a badge of honour among cadets and pilots – even if it were just there to allow the headsets to connect properly. Kana checked her watch. Perfect. She had five minutes until her ride showed up.