“Dear Allah, he—” the pilot stopped talking as he frantically tried to maneuver, but there was no time. The missiles streaked upward at over two thousand miles per hour, even as he rushed toward them at several hundred.

As his colleague tried to break off, the squadron leader flinched, sensing the hopelessness of the maneuver. The missiles detonated on either side of Pelishar Three, ripping along its wings like a can opener and clipping the great bird. The pilot was somehow spared, surviving for the moment, only to realize his agile jet had just become his coffin. The man frantically started to pray as the plane continued to accelerate toward the ground: his systems fried, his eject sequence blown.

Trying to blank out the pure terror in his friend’s voice as it sputtered though the radio, the squadron leader focused his rage on the plane still rocketing up toward him, and Shahim in turn altered his course to lock on to the last F-16. They raced toward each other, both firing their Gatling guns in a Mach 2 game of chicken, seventy bullets per second ripping across the rapidly closing gap between them. But fury blinded the brave captain’s eyes in his last second before a hail of lead ripped his cockpit apart, mincing his body in an instant as it raced aft to do the same to his plane. As Pelishar One disintegrated, Shahim was already breaking upward in a spiraling turn to go after his American colleagues once more.

His face was resolute and he used his absolute control over his machine body and mind to blank out the last screams of the wingless Pelishar Three as it finally plummeted to the ground.

* * *

The general struggled to get his voice under control. Three F-16s gone in under a minute. Dear Allah, how could that be? Radar reported that the rogue Pelishar Four was now chasing after the remaining two planes of the squadron and he shook his head in despair. Why was this man doing this? How had some insurgent imposter managed to take out three highly trained pilots with such brutal dispatch? He shook his head, not even turning as his aide de camp finally came back into the room after his ill-fated trip to flight control.

“General Abashell, sir,” said the aide, trying to catch his breath, “the reports from the tower indicate that the pilot on Pelishar Four used the correct call signs and even emulated the voice of the pilot he apparently knocked unconscious.”

The general stayed staring forward, unsure how this new information helped the situation. So he was dealing with a very talented, well-informed imposter, who could fly better than any of his actual pilots. He frowned and summoned up his strength.