“Sorry for bringing this all down on you. Sorry for coming here and starting this war … Sorry for all the death I have brought with me.” Martin and Jack tried to speak but the Agent did not pause long enough for them to break in, going on to say, “Thank you for trying to save as many as you can, Major, Dr. Sobleski, I am afraid the virus is still going to exact a terrible toll, but at least you tried, and before the week is out, countless men, women, and children will owe their lives to you. This is Commander Mantil, Lord of the Hamprect Empire, Guardian of the Mantilatchi Heartland and Second Arberator of the Orbital, bidding you farewell and good luck.”

And with that, he rolled his plane earthward once more, soaring downward toward the coming missiles, breaking the tight-beamed connection with his fellow conspirators as he flew out of range, and leaving Jack and Martin in silence. The ground-to-air missiles were bigger and more powerful than anything a fighter could carry, relying more on brute force than the agile finesse of a fighter plane’s AMRAAM air-to-airs. But he came at them nonetheless, with the confidence of the phenomenally skilled, and the abandon of the just.

As he approached them, he spun his plane into a wide spiral as the wall of missiles came up at him, confusing their systems as their paths crossed and re-crossed. The first missile flew by within twenty feet, its detonation a moment too late as it exploded harmlessly behind him.

A quarter of a second later, the next was too far away to connect with him as it flew past and it didn’t trigger, instead starting a tight, powered turn so it could pursue his engine trail once more. But the third and fourth came in together, detonating as one on either side of him. A wild maneuver saved him from a direct hit, but the detonations rocked his plane like a die thrown across a backgammon board. Before alarms had even had a chance to go off, his canopy had shattered, air racing in like a thousand hurricanes and ripping his puny helmet off his head to snap the vestigial oxygen tube from behind his back.

His remaining instruments told him that his right wing had been perforated in three places by the explosion, and that he had lost missile control on that side. His engine was down to two-thirds power and he had lost a large part of several of his flaps, as well as a majority of control of the trailing surfaces of his wings. Continuing down the growing list of other problems, he could not help but be amused by the fact that he had also lost control of his landing gear … like he was going to get to use it anyway.