White hot tracer fire lanced precariously close as Yumiko ducked and weaved, desperately attempting to shake her tail. Heart pounding, throat tightening, she flinched as a second burst arced just over her splintered canopy, the shots even closer than the first. Talon Leader was right. The Romanov Bear determined to send two mixed squadrons in an effort to help soften up Shuangyashan. Talon Squadron was merely early.
Was there one or two on her? Yumiko jerked her head around to try to see, pain searing her right shoulder with every movement. "Gahhh! A little help here?!" All around, her world seemed to be teeming with death, the clouds filled with a swarm of black wasps, darting erratically, droning angrily, barking machine gun fire punctuated by the occasional cannon volley.
The early morning heavens seemed awash in the color of sacrifice.
"Sorry Yumi, I've got problems of my own!" Tsubasa answered painfully.
"T-that makes three of us!" yelped a high-pitched Tori.
Yumiko gripped her stick with both hands and jerked hard to the right, throwing her weight sideways with the motion. Where was Talon Fifteen? She was supposed to provide cover! Her Hayabusa trembled against the force of gravity as it banked sharply and climbed, engine straining against the demands of full throttle. The chasing Ilyushin Il-2 attempted to match the maneuver but sagged heavily in its turn. Yumiko caught a glimpse of the lumbering fighter swinging wide and sinking low before disappearing into the clouds. The aircraft broke off its chase.
Her second stalker, a Romanov painted Messerschmitt, had other ideas. The Me 109 closed in rapidly, thunder thrice pounding in rapid succession from its engine mounted thirty-millimeter cannon. Yumiko jerked hard left, panting, knees knocking, gloved hands slick with sweat. The Romanov deftly matched her move, grinding in closer for the kill. It had her number. The next blown kiss would be her last.
"Nineteen, where are you?" Talon Leader demanded.
"I have no idea!" Crimson clouds above, a sea of emerald black forest below, few distinguishable landmarks existed at three hundred plus miles per hour.
"Just dive! Hard!"
Yumiko shoved forward, pitching down sharply. Her Hayabusa dropped out of the sky on command, altimeter unwinding frantically, the sound of the free fall terrifying. Yumiko gritted her teeth as temporary weightlessness pressed her in against her seat, the sea of green quickly turning into individual tiny trees. Her shoulder burned as if on fire.
"I see you! Nose up, nose up!"
Yumiko snapped back on the stick. Gravity held fast. The Messerschmitt thundered voraciously again. Overhead, an intercepting Hayate, shrieking in loudly from a high dive, retorted with a paired twenty-millimeter roar of its own. Without hesitation, Yumiko's pursuer broke away abruptly, having lost its appetite for fresh meat.
"Let's dance, princess!"
As the Messerschmitt and the Hayate contorted into a lethal tango, Yumiko continued to wrench backwards on her stick. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. Why wasn’t she pulling up? The flak from earlier must have damaged something, an elevator? That only got stuck when in full dive? She glanced left, then right. No and no.
Yumiko’s mind spun through an alternate diagnosis of her wounded Hayabusa as she continued to wrench back on the stick. The earth held a firm grip, reeling her in, closer and closer, the collage of trees below gaining further and further definition. "Come on, come on, come on!" The Hayabusa shuddered, bucked, and jerked against its captor, struggling to break free.
"Please-please-please-please-please!" Yumiko chanted, pulling hard, scrunching her face, breath held.
Slowly, begrudgingly, the earth started to uncurl its fingers from Yumiko's wings. Unfortunately, the trees were sprouting up faster than gravity's speed of release. Trees growing, airplane still falling, it did not take a genius to figure out the end result.
Yumiko closed her eyes. If she was going to go splat, she didn't want to see it coming.
Comments (0)
See all