Aboard the ARC-Lightning stealth fighter Acheron, Captain Eva Rostova was a queen in a kingdom of thin air and stars. Her mission was simple: paint the target for the bombers following behind. But the sky, she knew, was a fickle friend.
The first warning was a soft thump, like a pebble hitting a tin roof. The world dissolved into a violent, shuddering lurch. Alarms shrieked—a chorus of electronic terror. Master Caution lights bloomed across her console like poisonous flowers.
"Rook-1, I'm hit! SAM burst, proximity fuse. Starboard wing damage, control surfaces compromised," she reported, her voice eerily calm, a practiced lie for the panic clawing at her throat.
"Copy, Rook-1. Jammers active. Bombers are aborting. Your orders are to RTB. We're sending a vector—" The voice from the AWACS crackled, then dissolved into a wall of static. Electronic Warfare alarms joined the cacophony. They were being jammed. She was blind and alone.
Survival.
Then, they appeared on her damaged threat receiver. Two blips, closing fast. "Drones," she whispered. Unmanned Hunters, programmed for the kill. Her mission was over. Now, it was just about getting home.
Eva firewalled the throttles, the single working engine screaming in protest. She dove, plunging the Acheron into a bank of thick, turbulent cumulonimbus clouds. The world outside vanished into a maelstrom of gray. The drones followed.
Inside the storm, it was a different kind of battle. Icing warnings flashed. The plane bucked and shuddered, the damage to her wing making every movement a fight. She was a surgeon operating on her own heart, her hands a blur on the stick and throttle, feeling the feedback through the metal, listening to the groans of her wounded bird.
A flash of red light on her display—a missile lock. One of the drones had predicted her course. Eva dumped chaff and flares, a desperate, sparkling cloud, and yanked the stick hard to port. The missile shot past, its wake rocking the crippled jet.
Fuel was critical. The drones were relentless. She couldn't outrun them. She had to outthink them.
Heroism.
An idea, born of desperation and a deep understanding of her machine, sparked. She leveled out, feigning a loss of control, letting the jet wallow. The drones closed in for the kill, their systems seeing an easy target.
At the last possible second, Eva cut the engine. The sudden silence was deafening. The Acheron dropped like a stone. One drone, unable to compensate, shot past her canopy. The second, slower to react, was now directly in front of her.
She relit the engine, its roar a triumphant scream. Her targeting system was dead, but her eyes worked fine. She flew straight into the drone, her damaged wing shearing through its carbon-fiber fuselage. It exploded in a silent, orange flower consumed by the clouds.
One threat was gone. The other was disoriented. Eva didn't wait. She broke out of the clouds, her altimeter spinning down dangerously. Through the rain-streaked canopy, she saw it—the runway, a tiny, lit scar on the coastline.
The landing was a controlled crash. Tires screamed, the damaged wing sparked against the tarmac, but she held it, pouring every ounce of her strength into keeping the jet straight. When it finally shuddered to a halt, the silence was absolute.
Eva leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the canopy, her entire body trembling. She was home.
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