I look down over a world, small and unassuming in the great scheme of things. I am but a man, yet I tower above this place. I am warrior in my own right, flying a platform of death at up to four thousand miles per hour, with aim only to kill.
Below me, many await to test my sword against theirs. Weapons systems designed to destroy me point upwards to the sky, waiting for me to enter their atmosphere.
I feel no hate for them. They seek only to end what seeks to end them. I am hunter, they are prey. I hear the launch command ring out. I feel my stomach lurch up into my throat as my beautiful plane drops from its launch housing.
Atmospheric flames lick at my engine of death as I enter the field of battle. Dozens of flight crews fall with me, each one with their own specific target. Far off in orbit, I see the glow of other insertion sights, swarming with their own reapers. Tracer fire and missile trails make their way from the ground upwards to the sky like fiery, backwards rain.
Explosions ripple through the air, and in the back of my mind, I comprehend that each one signals a fallen pilot.
Men, much like me.
Launch tubes spit upwards towards us, and the sound of my flight instruments wails discordantly in the manic music of war. The peace of the drop, that sacred calm before the storm, is now broken.
I press my stick forward into a violent dive, even as others among us break off from the flight path. Hostile jets scream upwards towards us, and we scream downwards towards them. In split seconds, my targeting system screams into a lock on one of them, and my warning system bellows back that he has done the same to me. I inhale, sharp and deep, and brace against the g-forces.
My missile fires first, his only moments after, and I find myself whipping sideways to evade, a bright trail of flares left behind me. I feel the explosion in my wake, hear the kill confirmation over the point-to-point commline.
I am hunter, they are prey.
The next fighter is behind me now, trailing me across the sky. He thinks himself the hunter, but he is outnumbered, and my brothers are with me. I lead him, weaving through the city skyline, whipping through gaps in the towers, keeping him tunneled on me.
He fires missile after missile, depleting my remaining flares, destroying his own home with his carelessness, and still, I let him follow me.
I hear my brother chanting his lock confirmation. The sound of an explosion. The point-to-point ringing out his kill confirmation.
As the dogfight continues.
Dropships and pods start to rain from the sky, clogging up the fields of fire. I kill, and kill, and kill even more of the enemy jet swarms.
Some of us crash in the chaos, raining shrapnel across the battlefield. Flares and flak and ash mix, and colored smoke rises from the ground, signaling to the landing forces. The haze builds in intensity, a hateful cloud of war.
I can hardly see what’s in front of me now, if not for my viewfinder outlining structures.
I barely weave through a gap in the buildings, and a some caliber of round strikes one of my left control surfaces. I feel myself starting to spin out. My palm strikes the eject button, and I am ripped, violently, out of my cockpit.
Something strikes my head as I tumble, the propulsion system in my seat not yet activated. Chatter still rings through on my point-to-point, and something explodes below me, or maybe above me, as I fall.
My vision fades in as I near the ground, red smoke rising up to choke me out. It’s quiet now, excepting gunfire in the distance. Even my point-to-point is silent, without my jets signal booster. My left leg is wrong, now, though I can’t look at it to determine exactly how. The pain is excruciating, like a hundred razors implanted in my muscle. I lie here, next to the smoke grenade. Who left it here, I wonder? Will they come for me?
The bright blue sky looks down at me, seeming to laugh. I feel warm now. It’s a shame, shadows eating the sky like that.
Such a pretty blue.
