One-on-one, the enemy fighters were no match for the Archangels, and within minutes, Stephanos and his squadron had decimated the first wave of Drasin fighter craft. However, it soon became obvious to even the most gung ho Archangel that the Drasin learned from their mistakes.

The second wave of fighter craft came at the Archangels in trios, each Archangel suddenly faced with three enemy fighters. Stephanos was the first to realize the enemy’s primary reason for this method of assault—or at least, the primary result.

“Watch it, Angels! Each ship uses a different laser frequency, so don’t count on the cam-plates to save you,” he snapped as he flipped his fighter in a barrel roll that dropped him under the line of fire of an enemy fighter. Invisible laser light scored space where he had been, but Steph just haloed the Drasin and flipped his fighter end for end as he loosed a missile up the alien’s plasma stream.

The explosion that followed tore the alien fighter to shreds, and Steph righted his plane as he glanced around. “Stay with your wingman! Don’t let them catch you alone!”

The tac-net echoed with replies from his team as Stephanos jigged his fighter into a tight roll, leaving two enemy fighter craft well behind. That still left him with one following tight to his six. Twisting the flight stick violently, Stephanos spun his plane around in a rapid spin, allowing the fighter’s inertia to continue pulling it along its previous course and swinging his guns onto the alien craft. Hunter became hunted in a handful of seconds before Stephanos squeezed tight on the firing stud, turning the enemy fighter into a cloud of expanding debris.

Many of the other Archangels weren’t faring so well. Stephanos could see the drifting fuselage of three of his squad floating dead in space.

Thank God the cockpits were all ejected. He pushed thoughts of those drifting hulks from his mind as the two Drasin fighters he had lost earlier swooped back onto a pursuit course with him. He found himself hard-pressed to avoid the crisscrossing lasers that dogged his fighter through his desperate evasions.

Sweat beaded above his eye when the second Drasin vessel suddenly went up in a blaze of blue-white flames.

“Thought you might need a hand, Stephanos.” He heard the grin in Flare’s voice as Archangel Four slid alongside him for a moment before the remaining Drasin moved in for another pass.

“Break on three, Flare. He can’t follow us both.”

“Roger that, Stephanos.”

The two sleek fighters paralleled each other for a moment longer before breaking hard away from each other and leaving the Drasin fighter to follow its original target—Stephanos.

“Anytime you’re ready, Flare!” Archangel Lead rocked quickly back and forth as incoming fire from the Drasin ship swept along its wingtips.

“Just lining him up, boss man.” Flare’s fighter dropped into position behind the Drasin ship, her vertical thrusters flaring as she bellied in on its six, giving him mere seconds to register her presence before the four linked-laser cannons on her wings glowed. Seconds later, a charred and drifting fighter was left in the place of the bogey who had been hunting Stephanos.