Into The Black, 001

Jeremy shoved the stick forward, decelerating as rapidly as he could when he touched the edge of the atmosphere. The Antiraian ships were close behind him, but their plasma weapons lost cohesion in even these little fringes of air. G-forces shoved him against his bindings as his fighter shed a weight of ablative armor to protect against the sudden heat.

Tha Antiraian ships, unprotected, blossomed into fireballs and died. Jeremy yanked the stick back, correcting course, and headed back out into open space. He could hear the cries of his fellow pilots through his familiar, some victorious and others screaming before they fell silent. Warbird was headed his way, with a half-dozen Antirians behind her. Unshielded, he loosed missiles and dodged to the side, watching with satisfaction as the cloud of pursuers fell to one. Warbird made a quick spin and came in behind her remaining pursuer, pouring cannons into it until it disintegrated.

Jeremy grinned, then spun aside again. He couldn't afford to be still; if anything hit him now, he was dead. He needed to get back to the Onus, before anything else went wrong.

His console triggered him: there were missiles approaching his ship. He reversed thrust, then shoved himself randomly to the side. Warbird had loosed her own missiles, and the Antirians targeting him abruptly died.

Their weapons, however, hadn't. A bright flare cut off scans for where he'd been a moment before, and scans showed at least two missiles circling back towards his ship. Jeremy activated a combination of thrusters that twisted his ship around, then fired the main thruster. One approaching missile immolated itself in the plasma jet, and the other fell into line as he fled, then exploded when it got too close. The main thruster flickered, but recovered, and he was away, tracing a twisted arc back towards the Onus.