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surface and up into space so the ground pounders could do their jobs.
    The bots were numbering in the several tens at least. Currently, Deuce had seventy-seven flying enemy tracks but at least fifteen of those were tiny. The only threats to an FM-12 were fighter-sized and her AIC had presently highlighted fifty-two of them. There were ten Saviors.
    The Saviors were bouncing and skittering across the surface in a mix of fighter, bot, and eagle modes doing their level best to pull the bot fighters from their strafing runs to engage them.
    Okay Bobby, give me some energy curves and flight path solutions.
    Affirmative.
    Almost instantly several of the red dots had yellow targeting Xs pop over them and red flight paths twisted off in every direction. Goat’s blue dot was right on her wing just behind her three nine line at the four o’clock position and their trajectories were laid out in blue. Deuce banked her fighter toward the nearest enemy target that was moving away from them, with hopes of jumping onto its six o’clock.
    “I’ve got lock on that one, Deuce!” Goat said. “Fox three!”
    A mecha-to-mecha missile twisted out in front of them leaving a blue ion trail as it chased the enemy fighter. The bot plane clearly detected that it had been locked on and was taking evasive action. It rolled over and then pitched a complete one hundred eighty degrees so that the nose of the fighter was pointed back at them. It went to guns immediately, taking out the missile.
    “Shit! Watch the guns, Goat!” Deuce shouted. She yanked the HOTAS hard to the left and threw some yaw into it. She then stomped her right outer pedal and started crabbing in a corkscrew spiral as she added speed. The closer she approached the AutoGnat the more sideways she flew. “Bank out right, Goat!”
    “Bankin’ right!”
    Deuce added more throttle and the centrifugal force to her spiraling and crabbed trajectory was putting more than seven gees on her body. She grunted and cursed as the pressure layer of her e-suit squeezed her legs and abdomen. The red flight path of the enemy plane spiraled inwardly at her in her mindview and outside the cockpit the world spun madly. The blue and red trajectory lines finally intersected just ahead of them. Then the targeting X turned from yellow to red.
    “Guns, guns, guns!” she shouted and continued to grunt through the g-load.
    Bright orange and red plasma balls the size of racquet balls tore across the space between them and hit home on the AutoGnat’s right wing. The cannon fire burst through the structural integrity fields of the enemy fighter and then blew the wing free of the spar. Sparks flew in every direction as the added angular momentum of the impacting cannon fire sent it spinning asunder. As what would normally be the cockpit rolled over into view cannon rounds burst through it. The little enemy fighter exploded into a bright orange and white firestorm.
    Deuce let off the foot pedals and let go the HOTAS briefly to let her mecha right itself. She quickly grabbed the stick and pulled it up and found her wingman in her DTM. Then her sensor alarms sounded and Betty started bitching.
    Warning, enemy sensor lock detected! Warning enemy sensor lock detected! The Bitchin’ Betty alerted her.
    “Shit!” Deuce bit down on her temporomandibular joint (TMJ) bite block and took in a fresh burst of oxygen and stims while simultaneously pulling the stick back to her gut and pushing the throttle full forward.
    “Fox three!” she heard Goat shout over the tac-net. She caught a glimpse of her wingman’s mecha scream by just behind her as he let the missile loose. The missile hit home this time taking out the AutoGnat that was locking her up.
    “Great shot, Goat!” Deuce shouted.
    As the rest of the Utopian Saviors pulled the enemy fighters upward and mixing up with them the chatter on the net picked up. Deuce did her best to keep up with the team in her DTM while at the same time doing her best not to get