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my superiors have informed me that if we do not get enough volunteers, there will be volun tolds .  Congress has spent a crapload of money building the Avengers and they want them in space.  Understood?”  The ragged chorus of Oorahs was even more ragged this time.  “Now that we understand each other, Congress has sent us an expert on the Avenger to brief us on its abilities.”
    Jack groaned at the last statement.  The rest of the pilots around him groaned as well, realizing with him that they were about to get a speech from a political animal.  Johanson waved a man forward and the pilots groaned again.  Not a political animal.  It was worse.  It was an egghead, and it wielded one of the weapons of their trade like a sword.  A laser pointer.
    “I am Doctor Kevin Parrish, from the Office of Naval Research.  Pilots, please refer to your pads for more information.  Cybers, you should be getting the datadump now.”
    Jack glanced down at the pad on his chair arm and his eyes narrowed.  There were lies, damned lies, and statistics, and he trusted them all equally.  He did not pick up the pad.
    “This is the Grumman F-12 Avenger,” Parrish said with a wicked slash of his laser point across the fighter.  He then settled it down by pointing at one of the fighter’s four main engines, on the wings.  “These are gigawatt-class fusion torch drives, the most powerful ever built into a fighter.  They can generate right angle maneuvering while in combat, making the Avenger very hard to hit.”  He aimed the pointer at the main fuselage, behind the cockpit.  “The gravity drive here can accelerate from zero to one percent of light speed in five point three seconds without losing gravity wave cohesion.”  The laser point slashed down the long nose.  “And using the nose as a focus, the drive can also translate into hyperspace on its own.  No capital ship required.”
    At that, the pilots and cybers alike shifted around in surprise.  Jack frowned.  Fighters were too small to enter hyperspace.  He scanned the exaggerated nose, seeing the power couplings running up and down it, and began to nod.  With enough energy, it just might be able to do it.  He glanced at Betty and she returned his gaze, mulling something over in her mind, before looking back to the fighter.
    The laser pointer moved to the turret under the fighter’s nose.  “She carries a turret with four laser emitters, that can fire in all directions in both anti-ship and anti-missile modes, allowing her to slot into a capital ship’s anti-missile system network seamlessly.  She also has two gravitic cannons designed to penetrate a deflection grid,” he continued, aiming the pointer at a large port just under the cockpit on the forward edge of the fighter’s port wing.  “In squadron strength, when focusing fire, a squadron of Avengers will be able to bring down even a capital ship’s deflection grid.  No missiles required,” he noted with emphasis.  “For protection, she is covered with laser reflective armor and can generate a deflection grid more powerful than any other Terran fighter.”
    The doctor smiled at them and brought the laser pointer down to the floor with a wicked slash.  “In short, the Avenger is faster than the Hellcat, more maneuverable than the Hellcat, carries twice the firepower of a Hellcat, is harder to kill than the Hellcat, and is capable of destroying capital ships in squadron strength.  This is the ultimate heavy fighter, a new generation of ships that we will use to kick the Shang’s asses across the universe,” the doctor said with what could almost have been a wicked smile, if the man had known how to make one.
    Jack glanced at the other pilots to see what they thought.  They seemed to think the same as him.  The Avenger was too big to be a proper fighter.  He couldn’t believe it could actually maneuver the way the doctor said, not with all that mass to move.
    Johanson stepped up quickly.