Chapter 4: In The Heat Of The Night

Tortured screams of men coming from the back, muffled by the cockpit door. The pop and whiz of rounds streaking past the canopy, occasionally accompanied with the shattering of glass. Tiran felt shards plunking against his helmet and visor, threatening to injure or blind him if they could just get through.

"Ian, Ian!" Tiran called out to his copilot seated to his right over the various alarms and bells. "I need you to get some ordinance down there, we need to escape!"

Ian was about to respond when there was *pop-bang* and a shattering of glass. Tiran heard gurgling and glanced over, mortified at the sight that met him. Ian's whole left side was nearly gone. His arm was dangling from his shoulder by a lone string of meat.

"Warning!" Li added over the cacophony, "Starboard side engine failing!"

Tiran quickly moved to compensate, taking thrust from the port side and feeding it to the starboard ventral thrusters. he almost had it, he almost had it.

*BANG*

The whole aft end of the aircraft began to pitch up. Higher, higher, the nose now pointing towards the dark ground. Below, the monotony of darkness was occasionally broken by muzzle flashes. Tiran yanked up on the stick and applied thrust, but it wasn't enough, the inertia was too much to overcome with one sputtering engine.

The ground rushed up to meet Tiran, like the maw of some great beast come to devour him. The nose hit. Tiran was thrown out of his seat, the world came crashing down on him. A vice clamped down on his arm and he felt a sucking pop in his shoulder. Something smashed and cut into his side and legs, something skewering him.

Then, silence. Blessed silence.

Tiran's vision flickered and faded. Then the world was lost to him.

Tiran awoke with a start, remembering the nightmare. He sat up in bed. It was strange. Usually, no matter how bad the dreams got, they didn't wake him up. But he still remembered them any way.

It took him a moment to realize why he had woken up. A klaxon was blaring in his ear, coming from the 1MC, a constant piercing, rhythmic tone. A second later, he realized what he was hearing. It was the General Quarters alarm. Tiran swore and jumped from his rack, grabbing for his flight suit.

"General Quarters, General Quarters!" A disembodied voice blared from the 1MC over the alarm. "All hands man your Battle Stations! Passage throughout the ship is as follows: starboard side up and forward, port side down and aft, General Quarters!"

"Li, you got any Idea what's going on?" Tiran asked aloud as he pulled on his boots.

'Negative.' Came her response.

"Damn it."

Tiran rushed to his door and pulled it open. The spec-ops guy usually standing guard was gone and people were running down the passageways in a hurry. Tiran grabbed at one of them in a red jersey and got him to stop, "Hey, you know what's going on?"

"No sir," the sailor replied, "All I know is that I have to set Full Bore, now!" And with that, he took off again.

Tiran was at a loss. He had no idea what was going on and nobody had contacted him. He retreated back into his room and was about to sit down when he heard a long, low buzz and felt the deck vibrate vigorously beneath his feet. Tiran knew that sound and feeling. It was the ship's CIWS. Essentially the last line of defense against a missile attack. If the captain had resorted to that, they really were in trouble.

Tiran had to do something, at least get some information. "Li, can you tap into the net?"

'I do not advise such action.'

"I need to know what's going on, just do it."

'Tiran,' Li warned, 'doing so would be a violation of UCMJ Article—'

"Just do it!" Tiran said impatiently.

'Very well, wait one...' she acquiesced.

Tiran drummed his fingers on the desk and tapped his foot in impatience. While he waited in the near darkness, the deck shook under him again as the CIWS threw yet another volley of tungsten slugs at targets. Tiran wondered how long they would last. They were only good for so many bursts before the ammo drum finally ran dry and one of the missiles broke through.

Li finally chirped in his head, 'Data link established, limited information available.'

"Lay it on me, Li." It was better than nothing.

'Telemetry from CVIC indicates two large surface contacts among several smaller vessels. Strike Fighters have been scrambled, anti-ship and anti-air munitions are originating from the large surface contacts.'

Tiran had an inkling as to what that meant. He hoped he was wrong.

"Li, can you give me comms from the Strike Fighters?"

'Working...'

A second later, Tiran heard a crackling in his head as Li patched in comms;

Gyr-2, approaching hostile, three miles out."

"Gyr-1, detecting missile launch from hostile, I have tone!"

"Break off, Gyr-1, deploy flares, jink jink jink!"

"Flares deployed!"

For a moment, there was just the heavy breathing of the pilots as they attempted to avoid the missiles.

"Gyr-1, flares ineffective! Missiles closing!"

"Goddammit, where'd they get that tech!?"

"Gyr-1, they're right on your ass, punch out!"

Another moment passed, the pilot's breathing becoming more labored. Then there was a bang and a whoosh as the pilot activated the ejection seat, followed shortly by a loud burst of static before the line cut dead completely.

"Gyr-1? Gyr-1, do you copy?"

Nothing.

"Son-of-a... Tower, Gyr-2. Bird splashed, no chute."

"Copy, Gyr-2. 99 Transmission, all aircraft be advised; surface contacts using smart AAA, flares may not be effective."

Tiran heard all he needed to hear. It sounded like it was becoming a slaughter out there. He ordered Li to cut out comms. He needed to do something. He couldn't just sit around while everyone was getting cut down out there.

The 1MC squawked, "This is the TAO. All hands, multiple surface contacts inbound, prepare to repel boarders. Repeat, prepare to repel boarders. All security personnel to your stations."

That was it for Tiran. The ship was expecting to be boarded. He wasn't a ground combatant, Tiran only had basic firearms training and an only above average aptitude for hand-to-hand. he needed to get in the air. Now.

"Li, I need you to get in contact with Ordinance Control. Have them load up the Cloudburst, 25mm and air-to-surface. Then get with Hangar Deck and have them load it up on the elevator. Make it sound like it's coming from Cherovic."

'I should tell you how highly illegal this is, but I doubt you would listen.'

"Just get it done."

As soon as Li started working, Tiran leapt out of his seat began gathering items. He went to his locker and pulled out the old pistol he'd taken from the storage unit only little over a week ago. He loaded up the magazines and popped one into the pistol, shoving that into a shoulder holster, which he then put on.
Ducking out into the passageway, Tiran began heading for Welkin's lab. If he was going to do this, he wanted to be in the right gear. He ran down the halls, barging through doors and dodging sailors in flash gear who were off to some other crisis aboard the ship.

The collision alarm went off, "All hands, incoming missile, starboard side, brace for impact!"

Tiran stumbled as an explosion rocked the ship, tossing him against a bulkhead.

"Hit alpha! All hands, relax brace!"

Tiran picked himself up and continued on, though with a few new bruises.

It took some time, running through the coordinated chaos that was a ship under attack, but he finally arrived at Welkin's lab. It was dark, the lighting in there had failed. Emergency lights had snapped on, but only provided mediocre illumination. The Doctor was no where to be seen.
Tiran fumbled around with some of the equipment, but his hands eventually came across the thin body suit. Tiran immediately stripped down and began to pull it on. The survival suit was much easier to handle, having been held up on a bulkhead with a stand and already being mostly assembled. It took him a little while longer, but he had everything on and sealed.

Cradling the helmet in one arm, Tiran clipped his pistol to the hard point on his thigh and secured the extra magazines to his side with some electrical tape.

"Li, what's the situation on our bird?" Tiran asked.

'The Cloudburst is on the elevator, trafficking to the flight deck'

'Perfect." Tiran said, rushing out of the lab.

When Tiran arrived on the flight deck, it was absolute chaos. Cat 2 was down with a burning Strike Fighter sitting at one end. Personnel rushed about everywhere, attempting to put out the blaze. In fact, the whole forward starboard side of the ship seemed to be on fire. .50 cal machine guns blasted away at all sides, trying to hold the attackers at bay. Down aft, a RAM launcher spun up and launched a volley of intercept missiles. They detonated in the air only a mile and a half way, having found their target.

Tiran looked to one of the elevators and spotted the Cloudburst pulling level with the deck, no worse for wear. He sprinted over as best he could in the survival suit, pulling on his helmet as he did so. He sent a command and the canopy began to lift up as he arrived.
A step ladder popped out from the fuselage and he climbed up into the cockpit, sat down and began strapping in, connecting air hoses. the canopy began to close just as Tiran's comms crackled to life.

"Tiran? Tiran! Get out of that aircraft this instant!" It was Cherovic.

"Sorry ma'am, but we're getting slaughtered here, I need to do something!" He replied as he began spinning up the engines.

"And this is better!? Tiran, stand down and get back in here before I have the MAs pull yo—"

"Ksshh, Miram, I- ksshhh." Tiran disabled the comms, cutting Cherovic off mid sentence.

'You know that won't fool her.' Li said.

"It wasn't about fooling her, I just wanted her to shut up."

Tiran initiated the final checks on the Cloudburst's systems. Everything came up green. One of the aircraft directors came running up, yelling and waving his hands, but Tiran couldn't hear him in the cockpit.
'Tiran, you realize the aircraft is still tied down.' Li told him.

"Too bad."

He hit the throttle, feeding power and thrust to the ventral nozzles. At first nothing happened. Then, slowly, the creaking sound of stressed metal began to reverberate through the frame. The director on the deck was overcome by bewilderment at what he was seeing and scrambled away, waving at everyone to get clear.

For a moment, Tiran thought he wasn't actually going to get anywhere. Then with a pop, a twang and a sickening crunch, the Cloudburst shot straight off the deck. Tiran tried to retract the landing gear, but all he got was the whine of broken hydraulics accompanied with an alarm indicating loss of pressure in the landing gear.

'Landing gear damaged, now inoperable.' Li added.

"We'll worry about that later!"

Tiran kicked the tail to the right and faced out towards open ocean. A fat tanker sat a few miles away, near the horizon. As Tiran spotted it, a gout of flame leapt up from its decks. Seconds later, a fireball materialized in the air over it.

The fuselage began to rattle and ping as it took small arms fire. At first, he thought Cherovic was trying to shoot him down, but then he noticed the fire was coming from the ocean, not the ship.

"Li, switch over to thermal, white hot."

The ocean stayed black, but blobs of brilliant white light appeared, bobbing in the surf. They were getting closer. Brighter flashes of white appeared on them as they continued to fire their weapons. Streaks of heat answered from the ship, but it was sporadic.
Tiran toggled the chin gun and he felt a satisfying kachunk as it deployed underneath him. A targeting reticule appeared, centered on his HUD in stark contrast to everything else before him.

"Alright," Tiran said with a satisfied grin, "Let's play."

Tiran flipped the hat off the fire button with his thumb and focused his gaze on the nearest target, then depressed the button. The cockpit rumbled happily as 25mm rounds carved through the air and delivered hot death. Cold water splashed up in the air, temporarily concealing the target, but then Tiran was rewarded by a bright white flare of heat as something caught fire and exploded.

"Ha! Adios, motherfucker!"

Tiran quickly dispatched the next three targets with three similar results, whooping each time he did. he glanced at his weapons information, 934 rounds expended. He had to be careful with the rest, he now had only 2266 rounds left. A look over at his air-to-ground armaments left him disappointed. He had only been loaded with a fraction of what the Cloudburst could carry, giving him only six AGM-11A Sea Swallow missiles. Fortunately, he was full on flares.

'Tiran, missile inbound!' Li exclaimed.

As if to punctuate her warning, lock tones began blaring in Tiran's helmet.

"Shit!"

Tiran hit the thrust and climbed high, angling up and phasing out of VTOL. Before he even thought to, Li deployed flares and Tiran kicked the Cloudburst into a tight turn to throw the missile off target. Their efforts paid off as light momentarily flared from the left side of the cockpit, then subsided.

"That was close!" Tiran exclaimed as he climbed even higher. "Give me some targets, any air?"

'Negative.' Li responded curtly. 'All targets are on the surface, what appears to be two reconfigured oil tankers and several smaller craft, minus the four you destroyed.'

"So that's it huh? Send the small craft to attack the ship while the motherships take care of air." Tiran reasoned. "How the hell did they get past the Destroyer screen?"

'Currently not known.' Li answered.

"Well, nothing we can do about it now. Li, line me up on a vector for the nearest target, I want to put holes in it."

'Working...'

Lines quickly assembled in Tiran's HUD as Li calculated the best attack vectors on the nearest tanker. As soon as Tiran lined up with one, he put the Cloudburst into a steep dive, lining up with the target. He switched from the chin gun to AGMs hooked onto the external racks.
The tanker shined like the sun against the blackness of space as he hurdled towards it, moon glowing at his back. He got a lock tone for his missiles and fired off a volley of two. Even as he did, warning tones blared once again in his helmet as he entered the weapons range of whatever anit-air the enemy ship was using.

Fortunately, the missiles were fire-and-forget, so Tiran pulled up and jinked to the right as he deployed flares once again. The missiles streaked past him, focused on the flares. One thought it found its mark and detonated, the other, however, flew past the decoys and re-acquired a lock on the Cloudburst.
Tiran cursed and put his aircraft into a steep dive. Altitude warnings flashed in his HUD. At the last second, he pitched up and hit the after-burner, instantly vaporizing a swath of sea water. The missile wasn't as maneuverable and plunged into the water, detonating an instant later.

"What's the status on our target?" Tiran asked as he pulled about.

'One missile intercepted, the other has struck the target amid ships. The vessel is injured, but still operational.'

"Damn." Tiran said as he brought the cloudburst down in altitude again and brought his bearings on the tanker again. 'Keep an eye out for me, Li, I'm gonna put two more in her stern."

Tiran was skimming the water now, his high rate of speed kicking up a large rooster tail behind him. The target grew in his field of vision and he got a lock tone on its aft end. When he felt it was the right time, Tiran let the two missiles fly and flashed past the tanker's fantail, just as a huge fireball erupted behind him.

'Detecting loss of power in target one. Ship is crippled, reading no more activity from anti-air.' Li reported.

"Fuck yeah, that's how we do it!" Tiran cried in victory. "Now for target two!"

Tiran lined up for his first pass on the second tanker. He only had two missiles left now, so he had to make them count. He figured he would do the same as the last run; get in close as insanely fast speed and low altitude and put his ordinance up their ass before they knew what was going on.
He lined up on the tanker's fantail, absolutely focused on his task. Tiran got a lock tone, drew in close, ready for his turn. He hit the firing stud.
One missile screamed toward its target, the other remained where it was on the rails, flashing jam warnings and error messages.

"Damnit!" Tiran roared, pounding on the missiles icon on one of the digital displays.

He didn't have long to vent. Another warning tone began to wail, they had a lock on him. Once again, Li deployed the countermeasures while Tiran deftly tried to avoid the ordinance. Once again, some of the missiles took the bait, but the rest weren't fooled. Tiran had to pull off yet another taxing series of rolls and corkscrews to get them off him, this time only escaping because two of them got too close together and detonated, destroying the rest.

"Damn it, Li, the fuck are we going to do?" Tiran growled in barely contained frustration. they weren't going to be able to do much with only two thousand cannon rounds and one jammed up missile on the rails.

'Wait one...' Li said as she attempted to find a solution. After several agonizing seconds, it seem she had one, 'Tiran, I need you to let them lock onto you with anti-air.'

"You fucking kidding me?" This was something that was usually to be avoided.

'Negative.' Li responded in her usual literal fashion. 'Let them acquire a lock, then set a course for the point of origin at high velocity.'

"I don't know, Li," Tiran said skeptically. "Are you sure?"

'Ninety-three point seven percent sure.'

Tiran sighed. He didn't much like this plan. It felt like she was making him to be the rabbit at a dog racing track. But they didn't really have any other options and she had saved his ass many times before, sometimes with even wilder sounding schemes.

Putting his fate in Li's virtual hands, Tiran put the Cloudburst into a lazy arc over the target. Getting them to lock onto him and send a missile chasing after him wasn't hard, it happened almost instantly. As soon as it did, Tiran put his aircraft into wide, but fast turn, the G-forces squishing him down into his seat. Then he lined up with the tanker, once again skimming the waves, but this time with two missiles chasing him.

'Tiran, wait until we get within sixty meters of the target, then pull up.'

Tiran felt like arguing, but at this point, Li knew best. So he focused and began to count down the range to target.

Four hundred.

Three hundred.

Two hundred.

One hundred.

Sixty!

Tiran pulled up as sharply as he could and dumped all the power he had into the aft and ventral nozzles. Even with the advanced systems in his suit, the gravities exerted upon him still threatened to take his consciousness. At the same time, Li fired the rest of their flares into the ship.
The Cloudburst cleared the ship with what Tiran was sure was mere inches. The missiles, tempted by the many burning flares, did not.
Tiran pulled up and rolled over in a split-S, whooping with victory as the middle of the tanker went up in flames below him. However, his heightened morale was short lived.

Warning tones went off all around the cockpit.

'Tiran, the ship's going down, but it still has power! Missiles inbound!'

"Fucking seriously!?"

Even after all that, they were still trying to shoot him down. Tiran would have been impressed if they weren't trying to kill him.
Tiran turned and juked, trying to throw the missiles off his tail, but no matter where he went or how, they always seemed to find him again. He couldn't use flares, they'd used them all in that last desperate attack. It seemed they couldn't out run them either. Every time the Cloudburst leveled out to gain speed, they gained on the Cloudburst.

Tiran was desperate for a solution, any solution. He frantically scanned the cockpit, looking for anything that might be able to bail them out. His eyes stopped on one panel. The words 'M-DRV ON' stared back at him. He reached for the switch.

'Tiran,' Li began to warn, 'We haven't tested that system yet.'

Tiran flipped the switch. A dull vibration began to build.

"It's all we have left and we need to do something!"

He flipped the next switch, labeled 'BLNK WRM UP'. The vibrations began to grow more violent, nearly bouncing him in his seat.

'Tiran-!' Li began to warn again, but it was too late.

Tiran reached for 'BLNK INT' and pushed the button.

At first, Tiran panicked. The vibrations almost instantly disappeared. Then they returned, devastatingly stronger than before. Tiran was sure his flesh was being shaken from his bones, such were their intensity.

Something slammed into their rear, throwing Tiran hard against his harness, light flaring at the edges of the canopy. The HUD failed and winked out, leaving Tiran blinking at a suddenly normal view of the dark horizon in front of him, but that soon disappeared as well.
A blinding, divine light filled the canopy as Tiran felt himself to be shot forward. A painful tingling sensation spread throughout his body, along with an excruciating feeling like he was about to be compressed and crushed into some dense ball of human meat and viscera. He tried to scream, tried to shout, but his chest felt as if it were being tightly banded with ever shrinking iron rings.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

Tiran began to come back, vision blurred and obscured, hearing muffled and strained. Outside the canopy, he saw a flash of dark blue. Then a flash of dark green. A flash of white, a flash of brown, green again, brown again, white light, stars, brown brown brown.

The Cloudburst struck something solid. Tiran's restraints snapped, throwing him hard against the console directly in front of him, red and white flashed in his vision. The aircraft flipped and suddenly he was spead-eagled on the ceiling of the canopy. He tumbled again and again and again, lending him the feeling that he was inside some sort of satanic washing machine, but without the scalding water, only pain.

Finally, it came to a halt.

Somehow, Tiran had ended up crumpled in his seat again. He couldn't see, couldn't hear anything other than a dull ringing.

'Tiran... Tiran...'

Li's voice sounded so far away, echoing across a vast distance.

'Tiran...'

What was she trying to tell him? If only he could hear her.

'Tiran...'

Tiran felt so tired, felt like he was fading away. His body was going numb, trying to force him to sleep. He tried to move, tried to bring himself back. But to no avail.

Slowly, gradually, silently, he lulled off, mind fading to black. Drifting, falling, into a warm, all encompassing, darkness.