Accelerating into the action, he stepped out of the hatch and floated his holographic red-dot sight to hover on one of the men congregated at the cockpit door. Jed’s target held a rifle in a vertical carry, beside another man who was pounding on the door with the butt of what looked like a Beretta AR90, an Italian iteration of the venerable M4. Somehow, with the roar of the wind outside the thinly insulated fuselage, the yelling and banging on the cockpit door, and Jed’s suppressor, the other warriors had miraculously not heard the gunshot.

Jed drifted left, opening up a lane that would allow him to fire offset if needed, perhaps not killing the pilots if his rounds tore through the cockpit door. In his peripheral vision, he saw Eli emerge through the floor hatch and fall in beside him to starboard.

The fighter on the bench seat turned, his eyes wide in surprise.

“Leave him if you can help it,” Jed said softly, knowing his voice would be amplified in Eli’s earpiece. “Corbin’s with him.”

“Check,” Eli said, but the choice was made for them when the man sounded the alarm by screaming at the fighters outside the cockpit, who turned to look aft en masse.

Jed squeezed the trigger, dropping his tango with a head shot.

“We have a gun!” Corbin screamed in Jed’s head and his ear for Eli to hear.

Eli responded by firing three rounds center mass and dropping the guard.

“He’s down. I’m out. Oh, it’s horrible,” Corbin said. “He’s dying and he’s so terrified . . .”

Jed moved left and forward, keeping his body much lower than usual as the man he’d shot slid down the cockpit door, leaving a trail of blood. He took a knee, hoping a low angle of fire might mean less likelihood of killing a pilot, moved his dot to the next tango, and fired. This bullet entered just under the fighter’s chin, tearing his face off, as Eli fired two rounds into the chest of the third shooter, followed by a single round to the head as he fell.

They both advanced swiftly, in parallel, Jed glancing briefly at the mess that had been Corbin’s man as they closed on the final tango, who was unarmed but standing with his head bowed in a strangely rigid posture.

“Hands in the air and get down on your knees!” Jed barked at the figure.

Instead, the man leapt into the action, moving toward them at superhuman speed. The Dark One jinked right and spoiled Eli’s first shot, the errant round hitting the top left corner of the cockpit door, which made Jed wince. The fighter’s eyes glowed the color of flame, and he let loose an eardrum-piercing shriek as he kicked a booted foot off the fuselage wall, propelling himself upward and toward Jed.