I pulled up, then chopped power.
The Hercules rose like a cliff, then dropped beneath them.
Both fighters overshot.
“Now!” I shouted.
Viper Lead’s voice exploded through the radio. “Fox three!”
Two missiles from the arriving F-35s sliced through the edge of the storm.
One enemy fighter vanished in a burst of orange light behind the clouds.
The other spiraled away smoking.
Rodriguez screamed again, but this time it sounded almost happy. “That counts! That absolutely counts!”
“Six left,” I said.
“Why did you say that like six is a small number?”
“Because ten was worse.”
Viper Flight arrived like judgment.
Two F-35s against six fighters should have been bad math, but bad math becomes survivable when the enemy has lost patience, formation, and pride. Black Crane tried to regain control, barking orders over an open frequency. He wanted his pilots to disengage from the storm, spread wide, reset.
I could not let him.
“Viper Lead,” I said, “Black Crane is the lead aircraft. He’s high left, using the storm edge for cover.”
A pause.
“How do you know that?”
“Because he thinks beautifully and loses ugly.”
Rodriguez blinked at me.
Viper Lead didn’t ask again.
Black Crane broke through a gray curtain of rain, banking hard across our nose. His fighter was close enough that I saw its dark shape flicker in lightning. He wasn’t aiming at Viper.
He was aiming at us.
A final gun pass.
Personal.
“Captain,” Rodriguez whispered, voice hollow. “He’s coming straight at us.”
“I know.”
“No missiles?”
“He wants to see it.”
“See what?”
“Me die.”
The cannon lit up.
Tracers tore toward the cockpit like burning needles.
Everything inside me went silent.
Not peaceful.
Silent.
I pulled the Hercules into the stupidest maneuver of my life.
I dropped the nose, then rolled hard left into the storm’s downdraft, using the damaged engine’s drag like an anchor. The aircraft twisted sideways, too heavy, too slow, too impossible. Black Crane adjusted instantly—almost perfectly.
Almost.
A lightning burst blinded the sky.
For half a second, his fighter crossed directly between us and the storm wall.
“Viper Two,” I said calmly, “shoot through my smoke.”
Viper Two understood.
A missile streaked past our tail, disappeared into the black cloud, then reappeared beneath Black Crane’s wing.
He tried to climb.
Too late.
The explosion didn’t look real at first. Just a flower of fire opening inside the rain.
Then pieces of the most feared fighter in the sky scattered into the storm.
The radio went dead.
No insult.
No threat.
No final word.
Just silence.
Rodriguez stared through the windshield, mouth open. “Did we just—”
“No,” I said, because my hands were shaking now and I didn’t want him to hear it in my voice. “Viper did.”
He looked at me. “Captain, you gift-wrapped him.”
The remaining fighters broke.
Without Black Crane, the formation lost its spine. Two fled east. One climbed away trailing fuel. Another tried one last missile lock and was immediately chased off by Viper Lead.
The sky, which had been trying to kill us for twelve minutes, suddenly had room to breathe.
“Cargo 72,” Viper Lead said, “enemy aircraft are disengaging. You are clear.”
Clear.
The word hit harder than the explosion.
For the first time since the alarm began, I felt the blood on my temple, the ache in my shoulder, the tremor in my fingers. I smelled burned wiring and coffee and fear. I heard Rodriguez breathing behind me, alive.
Alive.
Then another warning light blinked red.
Hydraulic pressure dropping.
Fuel imbalance.
Engine one failing completely.
The Hercules dipped.
Rodriguez saw the panel. “Captain?”
I stared at the ocean below.
We had survived the fighters.
Now we had to survive the airplane.
“Viper Lead,” I said, “Cargo 72 is losing hydraulics and fuel. I need nearest runway.”
“Nearest friendly strip is one hundred forty miles.”