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targets identified as Dragons. We have a count of four-five-zero Dragons, over.”
     
    He cut the comms and looked over at Walker, who had an incredulous look on his face. Osborne shrugged.
     
    “Not every day you get to name a Kaiju,” he pointed out.
     
    “You’re insane,” Walker said. He flipped back over to the comm network. “Flight, this is Lead. Guns, guns, guns!”
     
    Walker depressed the firing mechanism of the ship's forward cannons with his thumb.  The pintle-mounted tri-barrels swung back and forth, spraying the sky with streams of armor piercing, explosive rounds. The firing mechanism tracked every object in the sky, allowing Osborne to prioritize them as they locked on to their target. The new Kaiju began to fall from the sky as the 105 rounds tore into them.  Walker smiled grimly.
     
    “No armor whatsoever,” he muttered.
     
    “That’s handy,” Osborne nodded.
     
    “Target acquired,” Walker said. “Fox–”
     
    “Incoming!”
     
    Walker was a combat veteran, one of the few who had survived both New Orleans and Las Vegas. His skills had been honed on the white-hot forge of the battlefield. His list of battles was a mile long. London. New York. Rio de Janeiro, twice. Sydney.  He claimed to have the reflexes of a cat, and the eye of a falcon.  He also had the record to back up those claims.  He was arguably the best pilot still alive. Those skills, combined with two lifetime’s worth of good luck, were the only thing keeping him and his copilot alive as the smaller, flying Kaiju began to spit out streams of molten metal at the four Tridents.
     
    Walker jerked his stick all the way back and the Trident responded, the aircraft tilting upwards in the sky and rocketing away. The lithe craft had almost made it away clean, but a stray stream of molten metal tore at the undercarriage of the vessel. Alarm klaxons howled as the targeting system of the Trident went down, completely destroyed by the liquid metal. The rudder of the craft began to shake, dropping Walker’s ability to maneuver to almost none. He swore and kicked the floor pedals, disengaged the thrust and waited for gravity to catch back up with them.
     
    “Jesus...” Osborne whispered and pointed at the screen. Walker looked at the screen and blanched.
     
    Trident Three, crewed by Lieutenant Commander Etienne Moynier and his copilot, Lieutenant Larry Southard, had been completely destroyed as dozens of liquid metal projectiles tore through them. Pieces of the flaming wreckage crashed to the ground, creating a mockery of a funeral pyre for both warriors, something that the cynical pilots of the Tridents often joked about. Dark humor was what kept them going, although today, it would not be gallows humor keeping them alive. The Mother Kaiju roared triumphantly and continued her march towards Lemura.
     
    “No chutes,” Osborne announced as he turned in his seat and scanned the sky. “Repeat, no chutes! Damn it...”
     
    “Weapon targeting system is down completely,” Walker announced as the Trident went through a brief moment of weightlessness before the nose of the aircraft pointed back down towards the earth. As they began to accelerate, he pushed the throttles to full and the engines roared to life. “Landing gear is shot. 105 is down, comms are down. We have engines, but we’re low on fuel. Not much else we can do now, really, except...”
     
    “Except... what?”
     
    “You want out? You have plenty of time to eject. Hell, you may even survive.”
     
    “And land in the middle of that nastiness? Nope,” Osborne said with a shake of his head. “I’ve come this far. Besides, this is something I never thought I’d hear you say.”
     
    Walker grinned. “Prepare afterburners. We’re gonna ram that bitch.”
     
    “Hell yeah.”
     
    Walker put his hand on the secondary throttle, which sat beneath the primary and was almost never used. The Trident, capable of speed six times faster than sound, never