Fortunately, the delver efforts didn’t seem precise—objects started appearing all through the battlefield, not merely in front of me. If they’d been able to control this exactly, they would have made something appear so close to me that I couldn’t dodge.
“The former champion is coming back around,” Chet said. “He’s staying close to fool scanners, but I can echolocate him there. He should soon emerge from behind that office building to the left.”
“Thanks,” I said. As I was getting the hang of flying in here, for the next bit I was able to keep my attention on Hesho. He flew well, as I’d trained him, but his wingmate wasn’t as skilled. They did manage to get vaguely on my tail, so I led the two of them around the side of an enormous building that had a large open space near the roof. Parking for ships, maybe?
As we rounded the building, I cut my speed and ducked inside. Hesho and his wingmate followed. The confines of the hangar were tight, but a huge window filling the entire far wall provided good visibility. I regretted my decision as both Hesho and his friend opened fire. There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver in here, and slowing bunched us up.
Their shots took down my shields, so I hit my IMP—hoping it would reach them—and then I smashed my ship out through the back window as destructor fire chased me.
“I think you only managed to catch one of them with that,” M-Bot said. “The one who isn’t Lord Hesho.”
“Scud.” I swooped down along the building, then speared the bottom corner with my lightlance and made an assisted turn—barely in time, as destructor fire sprayed behind me. I took the next three turns fast, darting through an increasingly busy junkyard of a battlefield.
Was…was that a cow?
I kept flying through the cluttered urban debris, pushing to get ahead of Hesho. But he stuck on me. His wingmate didn’t have to; they could cut out of the chase at times and then swoop back in as we came around another direction. As long as Hesho was putting heat on me, I had to stay on the defensive.
I tried to loop around and pick off the wingmate, but Hesho unloaded a sequence of shots just ahead of where I had been planning to go—which forced me a different direction. Without a shield, I had to be extra cautious. So in seconds both of them were on me again.
Eventually one of those shots was going to land. I broke downward—flying among dropping chunks of rock and debris. Hesho wove behind me.
“Warning, Spensa,” Chet said. “I am tracking the wingmate, though it’s out of sight. I think Hesho has ordered the wingmate to fly around—they’re trying to pin us.”
Scud. He was correct. When I leveled out, I spotted the wingmate hovering there, ready to open fire while Hesho still pressed me from behind.
I dodged as best I could, and felt another stab of pride. I hadn’t taught Hesho this kind of advanced technique. But I liked to think that it was my foundation in combat teamwork that had led him to strategies like this.
I wove in and out of falling chunks of rock and hit my overburn, intending to run straight through the shots from the wingmate and hope none hit me. At that moment though, a spray of fire—seemingly out of nowhere—slammed into the wingmate, freezing the ship.
“We have arrived, Spin,” Shiver said over the comm. “I should think that you’d know better how to stay with a group. You motiles, always wandering off in random directions.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate the assist.”
Other ships came in to nip at the two resonants—chasing them back away from the mess of appearing buildings. Those were largely centered on me, so while the delvers weren’t precise, they could evidently lob things in my general direction.
I was glad Shiver and the others were mostly moving to the other side of the battlefield. As much as I’d have liked help against Hesho, I didn’t want the others flying in these dangerous confines. Honestly, I was worried most about Hesho himself—as long as he stuck on me, he was risking death.
I needed to stun him quickly, if I could. I gave chase, passing a couple of drifting ships, locked up—but with their shields reignited to protect from collisions. A Superiority tug was gliding in to pull them to safety, and nobody attacked it. Kind of like how you might leave an enemy medic alone on an Old Earth battlefield. I found the civility of it encouraging.
I pulled out of the lower debris field, then veered sharply as the air began to vibrate. A second later, a small fragment appeared just above me—a chunk of city stretching for hundreds of meters, marked with sidewalks and planters.