Nox

Over the Gulf, 07:01
This one was good. Daring. Young, most likely. Desperate to live. Weren’t they all?
The dive was magnificent, foolhardy. Tchristan Skjursón, captain of the first wing, decided he would like more of this boy’s kind come the showdown. The boy flew, as they said, by the teeth. Such a scream dive. Skjursón didn’t know the runty little enemy fighters could achieve that.
It seemed almost a waste to slay him.
Wound tight in his flight suit, Skjursón committed his FP1-i steeper still, adjusting the trim, slicing down through the air like a knife at point six of mach. His cockpit was dark save for the winking lights of some instruments, which reflected off the black leather gloves encasing his hands. The stooping Firebird was an obvious mark in his gunsight.
How was it surviving? Pilot skill, or luck? The young had little of the former and, sometimes, barrels of the latter. The dive was testing the enemy plane right to the limits of its airframe. A single degree deeper and the descent would strip the wings away at the cabane or blow out the engine.
Behind his full-head helmet, Skjursón smiled. His face, so seldom seen, was marred by a grizzled tissue of scars.
At three hundred metres, the Firebird pulled out, dragging a long, aching turn up and away to avoid the ragged earth, its prop engine spitting and foundering.
Another surprise. Another admirable display of skill. Or luck.
Skjursón tilted his stick and nudged the engine, pulling out of the dive effortlessly, mocking the laboured struggles of the smaller plane. It had been locked in his sights for two minutes now.
Why hadn't he killed it?
I want to see what you've got, Skjursón thought.
The Firebird veered around a hilltop, letting the cross of its shadow flicker across the sunlit canopy, then tipped its wings hard to steer around another crag. Skjursón kept his FP1 almost level to execute a following path, ripping through the air like a hungry bird of prey. The Firebird was still in his crosshairs.
Suddenly, around the next turn, it disappeared. Skjursón frowned and swung about, assuming the boy had finally misadventured and flown into a hillside. For the first time in nearly three minutes, the gunsight was empty… visual lost...
No, not dead. There he was. The little wretch. He’d somehow flick-rolled the Firebird around the headland and swung back the way he’d come, gunning low on WEP.
Skjursón lifted his black-clad hands off the stick and clapped. Very fine indeed.
A warning note sounded and Skjursón snapped it off with a curse. He was down to reserve now, almost at the critical fuel threshold. That meant he had no more than two minutes left before he had to turn for home. More than that, and he wouldn’t make it to the beachhead aerie.
"Game’s done now," he hissed through chapped lips. He surged the FP1 forward and it went fluidly, responding perfectly, sure as a shark. Reacquire, he thought to himself. He’d made five kills already, another ace day, but this boy would make a nice round six. He’d dallied too long, playing games.
The FP1 chased and sought. The Firebird was pulling wide rolls and staying low, keeping the twisting furrows of the hill line between itself and the hunter.
Skjursón spat the most foul curse he knew. The little bastard was slipping away. By the tips of his fingers. By the teeth. He had allowed too much grace. Now the enemy was mocking him.
He got a partial alignment, then lost it again as the fugitive Firebird banked perilously around a coastal crag. They both passed so close that sand stormed up off the beach in their combined wash.
Another partial. Skjursón fired. Dazzling tracers laddered away from his machine and cut the cold morning air. Miss.
Another turn, another partial, another futile burst. Skjursón throttled up and soared around, swinging his machine out wide on the Firebird's eight. It was running for all it was worth, burning at full power. Skjursón got a true sight at last.
"Goodnight," he muttered, bored of the game now. His thumbs dug at the trigger paddle.
Cannon fire lanced down through the air ahead of him. Skjursón felt a tiny vibration and a glance told him he’d been holed in one wing. Out of the sun, a second Firebird was diving on his tail, its nose lit up with muzzle flash. Just a look told the expert captain that this second craft was piloted by an idiot, a man far less capable than the spirited boy he had been chasing. It was coming over too shallow, wobbling badly, desperately. It had no real target.
But still, it was behind him and gunning madly. The warning sounded again, impatient. He’d reached critical fuel threshold.
He was done here. Enough. Skjursón pulled the stick and powered off almost vertical, pulling out of the chase. The second Firebird went by under him as he climbed, bemused by the sudden exit.
Skjursón climbed into the sunlight, gaining altitude. He banked 180 and aimed his beloved FP1 South. This broiling air war was just getting started. There would be another day.
And another kill.

Over the Gulf, 07:01
This one was good. Daring. Young, most likely. Desperate to live. Weren’t they all?
The dive was magnificent, foolhardy. Tchristan Skjursón, captain of the first wing, decided he would like more of this boy’s kind come the showdown. The boy flew, as they said, by the teeth. Such a scream dive. Skjursón didn’t know the runty little enemy fighters could achieve that.
It seemed almost a waste to slay him.
Wound tight in his flight suit, Skjursón committed his FP1-i steeper still, adjusting the trim, slicing down through the air like a knife at point six of mach. His cockpit was dark save for the winking lights of some instruments, which reflected off the black leather gloves encasing his hands. The stooping Firebird was an obvious mark in his gunsight.
How was it surviving? Pilot skill, or luck? The young had little of the former and, sometimes, barrels of the latter. The dive was testing the enemy plane right to the limits of its airframe. A single degree deeper and the descent would strip the wings away at the cabane or blow out the engine.
Behind his full-head helmet, Skjursón smiled. His face, so seldom seen, was marred by a grizzled tissue of scars.
At three hundred metres, the Firebird pulled out, dragging a long, aching turn up and away to avoid the ragged earth, its prop engine spitting and foundering.
Another surprise. Another admirable display of skill. Or luck.
Skjursón tilted his stick and nudged the engine, pulling out of the dive effortlessly, mocking the laboured struggles of the smaller plane. It had been locked in his sights for two minutes now.
Why hadn't he killed it?
I want to see what you've got, Skjursón thought.
The Firebird veered around a hilltop, letting the cross of its shadow flicker across the sunlit canopy, then tipped its wings hard to steer around another crag. Skjursón kept his FP1 almost level to execute a following path, ripping through the air like a hungry bird of prey. The Firebird was still in his crosshairs.
Suddenly, around the next turn, it disappeared. Skjursón frowned and swung about, assuming the boy had finally misadventured and flown into a hillside. For the first time in nearly three minutes, the gunsight was empty… visual lost...
No, not dead. There he was. The little wretch. He’d somehow flick-rolled the Firebird around the headland and swung back the way he’d come, gunning low on WEP.
Skjursón lifted his black-clad hands off the stick and clapped. Very fine indeed.
A warning note sounded and Skjursón snapped it off with a curse. He was down to reserve now, almost at the critical fuel threshold. That meant he had no more than two minutes left before he had to turn for home. More than that, and he wouldn’t make it to the beachhead aerie.
"Game’s done now," he hissed through chapped lips. He surged the FP1 forward and it went fluidly, responding perfectly, sure as a shark. Reacquire, he thought to himself. He’d made five kills already, another ace day, but this boy would make a nice round six. He’d dallied too long, playing games.
The FP1 chased and sought. The Firebird was pulling wide rolls and staying low, keeping the twisting furrows of the hill line between itself and the hunter.
Skjursón spat the most foul curse he knew. The little bastard was slipping away. By the tips of his fingers. By the teeth. He had allowed too much grace. Now the enemy was mocking him.
He got a partial alignment, then lost it again as the fugitive Firebird banked perilously around a coastal crag. They both passed so close that sand stormed up off the beach in their combined wash.
Another partial. Skjursón fired. Dazzling tracers laddered away from his machine and cut the cold morning air. Miss.
Another turn, another partial, another futile burst. Skjursón throttled up and soared around, swinging his machine out wide on the Firebird's eight. It was running for all it was worth, burning at full power. Skjursón got a true sight at last.
"Goodnight," he muttered, bored of the game now. His thumbs dug at the trigger paddle.
Cannon fire lanced down through the air ahead of him. Skjursón felt a tiny vibration and a glance told him he’d been holed in one wing. Out of the sun, a second Firebird was diving on his tail, its nose lit up with muzzle flash. Just a look told the expert captain that this second craft was piloted by an idiot, a man far less capable than the spirited boy he had been chasing. It was coming over too shallow, wobbling badly, desperately. It had no real target.
But still, it was behind him and gunning madly. The warning sounded again, impatient. He’d reached critical fuel threshold.
He was done here. Enough. Skjursón pulled the stick and powered off almost vertical, pulling out of the chase. The second Firebird went by under him as he climbed, bemused by the sudden exit.
Skjursón climbed into the sunlight, gaining altitude. He banked 180 and aimed his beloved FP1 South. This broiling air war was just getting started. There would be another day.
And another kill.

Over the Gulf, 06:35
In the side rush of dawn, the distant peaks glowed pink, like some travesty of a fondant cake. Hard shadows infilled the cavities like ink. Streamers of white cloud strung out in the freezing air, 2000 metres below.
Nock Leader was just a cruciform speck in the bright air ahead. He started to turn, ten degrees to the north-west. Òmah tilted the stick, following, rolling. The horizon swung up and the world moved around. Slowly, slowly. He heard the knocking sound and ignored it. At least the inclinometer was still working. As he came around and levelled the column, Òmah reached forward and flicked the brass dial of the fuel gauge again. It still read full, which couldn’t be right. They’d been up for forty-eight minutes. He took off a gauntlet and flicked the gauge once more with his bare fingers. He felt sure the lined mitten had been dulling his blows.
The dial remained at full.
He saw how pinched and blue his hand had become, and pulled the gauntlet back on quickly. It felt balmy in his insulated flightsuit, but the cabin temp read minus eight. There was no sound, except for the background roar of the engine. Òmah looked up and around, remembering to maintain his visual scanning. Just sky. Sundogs flaring in his visor. Nock Three just abeam of him, a silhouette, trailing vapour. The altimeter read 2800 metres.
The radio gurgled. “Nock Leader to Nock Flight. One pass West and we turn for home. Keep formation tight."  They made another lazy roll. The landscape rose up in his port vision. Òmah saw brittle flashes of light far below. Artillery fire on the islands.
He heard the knocking again. It sounded as if someone was crouching behind the frame of his armoured seat, tapping the spars with a hammer. These engines always made a burbling, flatulent noise, but this didn’t seem right to him.
He keyed his radio. "Nock Leader, this is Nock Four. I’ve–" There was a sudden, loud bang. The channel squealed like a stabbed pig.
The world turned upside down.
"Oh throne! Oh crap! Oh shit!” a voice was shouting. Òmah realised it was his own.
G-force pummelled him. His P7E Firebird was tumbling hard. Light and dark, sky and land, up and over, up and over. Òmah choked back nausea and throttled down desperately. The radio was incoherent with frantic chatter.
"Nock Four! Nock Four!"
Òmah regained control and levelled. He had lost at least a thousand metres. He got the horizon true and looked around in the vain hope of seeing someone friendly. Then he cried out involuntarily as something fell past his nosecone.
It was another Firebird, one wing shorn off in a cascade of torn struts and body plate. Flames were sucking back out of its air intakes. It arced down and away like a comet, trailing smoke as it went spinning towards the ground. It became a speck. A smaller speck. A little blink of light. Òmah felt his guts tighten and acid frothed inside him. Fear, like a stink, permeated the little cockpit. Something else flashed past him.
Just a glimpse, moving so fast. There and gone. A memory of black wings.
"Nock Four! Break! Break and turn! There’s one right on you!"
Òmah leaned on the stick and kicked the rudder. The world rolled again. He put his nose up and throttled hard. The Firebird bucked angrily and the knocking came again. Throne of Stars. He’d thought his bird had malfunctioned, but it wasn’t that at all. They’d been stung. He leant forward against the harness and peered out of his cockpit dome. The aluminum skin of his right wing was holed and torn. Night’s teeth, he’d been shot.
He pushed the stick forward to grab some speed, then turned out left in a hard climb.
The dawn sky was full of smoke: long strings of grey vapour and little black blooms that looked like dirty cotton. Nock Flight’s formation had broken apart and they were scattering across the heavens.
Òmah couldn’t even see the bats.
No, that wasn’t true. He made one, bending in to chase Nock Five, tracer fire licking from its guns.  He rolled towards it, flipping the scope of his reflector sight into position before resting his thumb on the stick-top stud that activated the quad cannons in the nose.
The bat danced wildly across the glass reticule of the gunsight. It refused to sit. Òmah cursed and began to utter a prayer to the sun to lift his wings and make his aim true. He waggled the stick, pitching, rolling, trying to correct, but the more he tried, the more the bat slipped wildly off the gunsight to one side or the other.
There was a little smoky flash ahead, and suddenly Òmah's Firebird was riding through a horizontal pelt of black rain.
No. Not rain. Oil. Then debris. Pieces of glittering metal, buckled machine parts, shreds of aluminum. Òmah cried out in surprise as the oil washed out his forward view. He heard the pattering impact of the debris striking off his nose plate and wing faces. The bat had chalked Nock Five and Òmah was running in through the debris stream. Any large piece of wreckage would hole him and kill him as surely as cannon-fire. And if so much as a screw went down the intake of his engine…
Òmah wrenched on the stick and came nose-up. Light returned as he came out of the smoke belt, and slipstream flowed the oil away off his canopy. It ran in quivering lines, slow and sticky, like blood.
Almost immediately, he had to roll hard to port to avoid hitting another Firebird head on. He heard a strangled cry over the radio. The little dark interceptor filled his field of view for a second and then was gone back over his shoulder.
His violent roll had been too brutal. He inverted for a moment and struggled to right himself as the hills spread out overhead. That knocking again. That damn knocking. He was bleeding speed now, and the experimental engines of the P7E had a nasty habit of flaming out if it struggled too hard. He began to nurse it up and round, gunning the engine as hard as he dared. Two planes rushed by, so fast he didn’t have time to determine their type, then another three went perpendicular across his bow. They were all Firebirds. One was venting blue smoke in a long, chuffing plume.
"Nock Leader! Nock Leader!" Òmah called.
Two of the Firebirds were already climbing away out of visual. The sun blinded him. The third, the wounded bird, was diving slowly, scribing the sky with its smoke.
He saw the bat clearly then.
At his two, five hundred metres, dropping in on the Firebird it had most likely already mauled. For the first time in his four weeks of operational flying, Òmah got a good look at the elusive foe. It resembled his plane, superficially, the cockpit set far back above the drive at the point where the bow of the blade-wings met. A jet interceptor, the cream of the enemy air force. In the dispersal room briefs, they’d talked about these killers being dirt brown or green, but this was pearl-white, like ice, like alabaster. The canopy was tinted black, like a dark eye-socket in a polished skull.
Òmah had expected to feel fear, but he got a thrill of adrenaline instead. He leaned forward, hunched down in the Firebird’s armoured cockpit, and opened the throttle, sweeping in on the bat’s five. It didn’t appear to have seen him. It was lining up, leisurely, on the wounded plane.
He flipped the toggle switch. Guns live.
Closing at three hundred metres. Òmah rapidly calculated his angle of deflection, estimated he’d have to lead his shot by about five degrees. Reverent eye, he had it…
He thumbed the firing stud. The Firebird shuddered slightly as the cannons lit up. He saw flashflames licking up from under the curve of the nose cone. He heard and felt the thump of the breechblocks.
The bat had gone.
He came clear, pulling a wide turn at about two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. The engagement had been over in an instant. Had he killed it? He sat up into the clear blister of the canopy like an animal looking out of its burrow, craning around. If he’d hit it, surely there would be smoke? The only smoke he could see was about a thousand metres above in the pale blue sky where the main portion of the dogfight was still rolling.
He turned. First rule of air combat: take a shot and pull off. Never stick with a target, never go back. That made you a target. But still he had to know. He had to.
He dipped his starboard wing, searching below for a trace of fire.  Nothing.
Òmah levelled off.
And there it was. Right alongside him.
He cried out in astonishment. The bat was less than a wing’s breadth away, riding along in parallel with him. There was not a mark on its burnished white fuselage.  It was playing with him.
Panic rose inside pilot cadet Zhep det Òmah. He knew his valiant little Firebird could neither outrun nor out-climb the enemy's craft. He throttled back hard, and threw on his speed brakes, hoping the sudden manoeuvre would cause the big machine to overshoot him.
For a moment, it vanished. Then it was back, on his other side, copying his brake-dive. Òmah swore.. He was so close to it that he could see the jet nozzles on the belly under the blade-wings. It could out-dance any prop craft, climbing, braking, even slowing to a near-stall.
Òmah refused to accept he was out-classed, refused to admit he was about to die. He twisted the stick, kicked the rudder right over and went into the deepest dive he dared execute. Any deeper, and the Firebird's wings would shear off its airframe. The world rushed up, filling his vision. He heard the air screaming. He saw the glory of the land ascending to meet him. His land. His home. The home he had joined up to save. Behind him, the pearl-white enemy machine tucked in effortlessly and followed him down. 

The morning after Judge Gedridh's decision, Jacen scans through his usually meticulous calendar and notices an influx of "Red" tagged events that he usually jokingly calls "House Calls". They are one-on-one only meetings, usually reserved for his most prestigious clients. He recalls an interaction last night client's in-house counsel that already hinted at disapproval, subtly questioning how the Woolrey-Arnold Pharmaceutical case aligns with Jacen's established portfolio. The tone suggested more than a mere lack of comprehension; it signaled an unspoken disapproval. Now, with the surge in requests for personal meetings, Jacen senses that these encounters will not be the routine discussions of legal matters or happenings for him to help 'figure out'. Instead, they are likely to be covert interrogations and pressure sessions, as his elite clientele seeks to understand and influence his stance on the controversial case.
Contemplating the schedule before him, he starts to mull over how he will strategically defend his decision to take on the Woolrey-Arnold Pharmaceutical case. Subtly hinting at the broader implications of the espionage issue and emphasizing the importance of protecting his clients' interests in this burgeoning cyber world is possible his only change at crafting a delicate narrative that justifies his involvement in this suit. He cannot plainly state the possibility that the same espionage tactics resulting in the drug formulation leak may have touched upon the confidential matters of his high-profile clients without causing undue alarm. 
"****", Jacen mutters into his mug. 

Over the Gulf, 07:01
This one was good. Daring. Young, most likely. Desperate to live. Weren’t they all?
The dive was magnificent, foolhardy. Tchristan Skjursón, captain of the first wing, decided he would like more of this boy’s kind come the showdown. The boy flew, as they said, by the teeth. Such a scream dive. Skjursón didn’t know the runty little enemy fighters could achieve that.
It seemed almost a waste to slay him.
Wound tight in his flight suit, Skjursón committed his FP1-i steeper still, adjusting the trim, slicing down through the air like a knife at point six of mach. His cockpit was dark save for the winking lights of some instruments, which reflected off the black leather gloves encasing his hands. The stooping Firebird was an obvious mark in his gunsight.
How was it surviving? Pilot skill, or luck? The young had little of the former and, sometimes, barrels of the latter. The dive was testing the enemy plane right to the limits of its airframe. A single degree deeper and the descent would strip the wings away at the cabane or blow out the engine.
Behind his full-head helmet, Skjursón smiled. His face, so seldom seen, was marred by a grizzled tissue of scars.
At three hundred metres, the Firebird pulled out, dragging a long, aching turn up and away to avoid the ragged earth, its prop engine spitting and foundering.
Another surprise. Another admirable display of skill. Or luck.
Skjursón tilted his stick and nudged the engine, pulling out of the dive effortlessly, mocking the laboured struggles of the smaller plane. It had been locked in his sights for two minutes now.
Why hadn't he killed it?
I want to see what you've got, Skjursón thought.
The Firebird veered around a hilltop, letting the cross of its shadow flicker across the sunlit canopy, then tipped its wings hard to steer around another crag. Skjursón kept his FP1 almost level to execute a following path, ripping through the air like a hungry bird of prey. The Firebird was still in his crosshairs.
Suddenly, around the next turn, it disappeared. Skjursón frowned and swung about, assuming the boy had finally misadventured and flown into a hillside. For the first time in nearly three minutes, the gunsight was empty… visual lost...
No, not dead. There he was. The little wretch. He’d somehow flick-rolled the Firebird around the headland and swung back the way he’d come, gunning low on WEP.
Skjursón lifted his black-clad hands off the stick and clapped. Very fine indeed.
A warning note sounded and Skjursón snapped it off with a curse. He was down to reserve now, almost at the critical fuel threshold. That meant he had no more than two minutes left before he had to turn for home. More than that, and he wouldn’t make it to the beachhead aerie.
"Game’s done now," he hissed through chapped lips. He surged the FP1 forward and it went fluidly, responding perfectly, sure as a shark. Reacquire, he thought to himself. He’d made five kills already, another ace day, but this boy would make a nice round six. He’d dallied too long, playing games.
The FP1 chased and sought. The Firebird was pulling wide rolls and staying low, keeping the twisting furrows of the hill line between itself and the hunter.
Skjursón spat the most foul curse he knew. The little bastard was slipping away. By the tips of his fingers. By the teeth. He had allowed too much grace. Now the enemy was mocking him.
He got a partial alignment, then lost it again as the fugitive Firebird banked perilously around a coastal crag. They both passed so close that sand stormed up off the beach in their combined wash.
Another partial. Skjursón fired. Dazzling tracers laddered away from his machine and cut the cold morning air. Miss.
Another turn, another partial, another futile burst. Skjursón throttled up and soared around, swinging his machine out wide on the Firebird's eight. It was running for all it was worth, burning at full power. Skjursón got a true sight at last.
"Goodnight," he muttered, bored of the game now. His thumbs dug at the trigger paddle.
Cannon fire lanced down through the air ahead of him. Skjursón felt a tiny vibration and a glance told him he’d been holed in one wing. Out of the sun, a second Firebird was diving on his tail, its nose lit up with muzzle flash. Just a look told the expert captain that this second craft was piloted by an idiot, a man far less capable than the spirited boy he had been chasing. It was coming over too shallow, wobbling badly, desperately. It had no real target.
But still, it was behind him and gunning madly. The warning sounded again, impatient. He’d reached critical fuel threshold.
He was done here. Enough. Skjursón pulled the stick and powered off almost vertical, pulling out of the chase. The second Firebird went by under him as he climbed, bemused by the sudden exit.
Skjursón climbed into the sunlight, gaining altitude. He banked 180 and aimed his beloved FP1 South. This broiling air war was just getting started. There would be another day.
And another kill.

Over the Gulf, 07:01
This one was good. Daring. Young, most likely. Desperate to live. Weren’t they all?
The dive was magnificent, foolhardy. Tchristan Skjursón, captain of the first wing, decided he would like more of this boy’s kind come the showdown. The boy flew, as they said, by the teeth. Such a scream dive. Skjursón didn’t know the runty little enemy fighters could achieve that.
It seemed almost a waste to slay him.
Wound tight in his flight suit, Skjursón committed his FP1-i steeper still, adjusting the trim, slicing down through the air like a knife at point six of mach. His cockpit was dark save for the winking lights of some instruments, which reflected off the black leather gloves encasing his hands. The stooping Firebird was an obvious mark in his gunsight.
How was it surviving? Pilot skill, or luck? The young had little of the former and, sometimes, barrels of the latter. The dive was testing the enemy plane right to the limits of its airframe. A single degree deeper and the descent would strip the wings away at the cabane or blow out the engine.
Behind his full-head helmet, Skjursón smiled. His face, so seldom seen, was marred by a grizzled tissue of scars.
At three hundred metres, the Firebird pulled out, dragging a long, aching turn up and away to avoid the ragged earth, its prop engine spitting and foundering.
Another surprise. Another admirable display of skill. Or luck.
Skjursón tilted his stick and nudged the engine, pulling out of the dive effortlessly, mocking the laboured struggles of the smaller plane. It had been locked in his sights for two minutes now.
Why hadn't he killed it?
I want to see what you've got, Skjursón thought.
The Firebird veered around a hilltop, letting the cross of its shadow flicker across the sunlit canopy, then tipped its wings hard to steer around another crag. Skjursón kept his FP1 almost level to execute a following path, ripping through the air like a hungry bird of prey. The Firebird was still in his crosshairs.
Suddenly, around the next turn, it disappeared. Skjursón frowned and swung about, assuming the boy had finally misadventured and flown into a hillside. For the first time in nearly three minutes, the gunsight was empty… visual lost...
No, not dead. There he was. The little wretch. He’d somehow flick-rolled the Firebird around the headland and swung back the way he’d come, gunning low on WEP.
Skjursón lifted his black-clad hands off the stick and clapped. Very fine indeed.
A warning note sounded and Skjursón snapped it off with a curse. He was down to reserve now, almost at the critical fuel threshold. That meant he had no more than two minutes left before he had to turn for home. More than that, and he wouldn’t make it to the beachhead aerie.
"Game’s done now," he hissed through chapped lips. He surged the FP1 forward and it went fluidly, responding perfectly, sure as a shark. Reacquire, he thought to himself. He’d made five kills already, another ace day, but this boy would make a nice round six. He’d dallied too long, playing games.
The FP1 chased and sought. The Firebird was pulling wide rolls and staying low, keeping the twisting furrows of the hill line between itself and the hunter.
Skjursón spat the most foul curse he knew. The little bastard was slipping away. By the tips of his fingers. By the teeth. He had allowed too much grace. Now the enemy was mocking him.
He got a partial alignment, then lost it again as the fugitive Firebird banked perilously around a coastal crag. They both passed so close that sand stormed up off the beach in their combined wash.
Another partial. Skjursón fired. Dazzling tracers laddered away from his machine and cut the cold morning air. Miss.
Another turn, another partial, another futile burst. Skjursón throttled up and soared around, swinging his machine out wide on the Firebird's eight. It was running for all it was worth, burning at full power. Skjursón got a true sight at last.
"Goodnight," he muttered, bored of the game now. His thumbs dug at the trigger paddle.
Cannon fire lanced down through the air ahead of him. Skjursón felt a tiny vibration and a glance told him he’d been holed in one wing. Out of the sun, a second Firebird was diving on his tail, its nose lit up with muzzle flash. Just a look told the expert captain that this second craft was piloted by an idiot, a man far less capable than the spirited boy he had been chasing. It was coming over too shallow, wobbling badly, desperately. It had no real target.
But still, it was behind him and gunning madly. The warning sounded again, impatient. He’d reached critical fuel threshold.
He was done here. Enough. Skjursón pulled the stick and powered off almost vertical, pulling out of the chase. The second Firebird went by under him as he climbed, bemused by the sudden exit.
Skjursón climbed into the sunlight, gaining altitude. He banked 180 and aimed his beloved FP1 South. This broiling air war was just getting started. There would be another day.
And another kill.

Over the Gulf, 07:01
This one was good. Daring. Young, most likely. Desperate to live. Weren’t they all?
The dive was magnificent, foolhardy. Tchristan Skjursón, captain of the first wing, decided he would like more of this boy’s kind come the showdown. The boy flew, as they said, by the teeth. Such a scream dive. Skjursón didn’t know the runty little enemy fighters could achieve that.
It seemed almost a waste to slay him.
Wound tight in his flight suit, Skjursón committed his FP1-i steeper still, adjusting the trim, slicing down through the air like a knife at point six of mach. His cockpit was dark save for the winking lights of some instruments, which reflected off the black leather gloves encasing his hands. The stooping Firebird was an obvious mark in his gunsight.
How was it surviving? Pilot skill, or luck? The young had little of the former and, sometimes, barrels of the latter. The dive was testing the enemy plane right to the limits of its airframe. A single degree deeper and the descent would strip the wings away at the cabane or blow out the engine.
Behind his full-head helmet, Skjursón smiled. His face, so seldom seen, was marred by a grizzled tissue of scars.
At three hundred metres, the Firebird pulled out, dragging a long, aching turn up and away to avoid the ragged earth, its prop engine spitting and foundering.
Another surprise. Another admirable display of skill. Or luck.
Skjursón tilted his stick and nudged the engine, pulling out of the dive effortlessly, mocking the laboured struggles of the smaller plane. It had been locked in his sights for two minutes now.
Why hadn't he killed it?
I want to see what you've got, Skjursón thought.
The Firebird veered around a hilltop, letting the cross of its shadow flicker across the sunlit canopy, then tipped its wings hard to steer around another crag. Skjursón kept his FP1 almost level to execute a following path, ripping through the air like a hungry bird of prey. The Firebird was still in his crosshairs.
Suddenly, around the next turn, it disappeared. Skjursón frowned and swung about, assuming the boy had finally misadventured and flown into a hillside. For the first time in nearly three minutes, the gunsight was empty… visual lost...
No, not dead. There he was. The little wretch. He’d somehow flick-rolled the Firebird around the headland and swung back the way he’d come, gunning low on WEP.
Skjursón lifted his black-clad hands off the stick and clapped. Very fine indeed.
A warning note sounded and Skjursón snapped it off with a curse. He was down to reserve now, almost at the critical fuel threshold. That meant he had no more than two minutes left before he had to turn for home. More than that, and he wouldn’t make it to the beachhead aerie.
"Game’s done now," he hissed through chapped lips. He surged the FP1 forward and it went fluidly, responding perfectly, sure as a shark. Reacquire, he thought to himself. He’d made five kills already, another ace day, but this boy would make a nice round six. He’d dallied too long, playing games.
The FP1 chased and sought. The Firebird was pulling wide rolls and staying low, keeping the twisting furrows of the hill line between itself and the hunter.
Skjursón spat the most foul curse he knew. The little bastard was slipping away. By the tips of his fingers. By the teeth. He had allowed too much grace. Now the enemy was mocking him.
He got a partial alignment, then lost it again as the fugitive Firebird banked perilously around a coastal crag. They both passed so close that sand stormed up off the beach in their combined wash.
Another partial. Skjursón fired. Dazzling tracers laddered away from his machine and cut the cold morning air. Miss.
Another turn, another partial, another futile burst. Skjursón throttled up and soared around, swinging his machine out wide on the Firebird's eight. It was running for all it was worth, burning at full power. Skjursón got a true sight at last.
"Goodnight," he muttered, bored of the game now. His thumbs dug at the trigger paddle.
Cannon fire lanced down through the air ahead of him. Skjursón felt a tiny vibration and a glance told him he’d been holed in one wing. Out of the sun, a second Firebird was diving on his tail, its nose lit up with muzzle flash. Just a look told the expert captain that this second craft was piloted by an idiot, a man far less capable than the spirited boy he had been chasing. It was coming over too shallow, wobbling badly, desperately. It had no real target.
But still, it was behind him and gunning madly. The warning sounded again, impatient. He’d reached critical fuel threshold.
He was done here. Enough. Skjursón pulled the stick and powered off almost vertical, pulling out of the chase. The second Firebird went by under him as he climbed, bemused by the sudden exit.
Skjursón climbed into the sunlight, gaining altitude. He banked 180 and aimed his beloved FP1 South. This broiling air war was just getting started. There would be another day.
And another kill.

Over the Gulf, 07:01
This one was good. Daring. Young, most likely. Desperate to live. Weren’t they all?
The dive was magnificent, foolhardy. Tchristan Skjursón, captain of the first wing, decided he would like more of this boy’s kind come the showdown. The boy flew, as they said, by the teeth. Such a scream dive. Skjursón didn’t know the runty little enemy fighters could achieve that.
It seemed almost a waste to slay him.
Wound tight in his flight suit, Skjursón committed his FP1-i steeper still, adjusting the trim, slicing down through the air like a knife at point six of mach. His cockpit was dark save for the winking lights of some instruments, which reflected off the black leather gloves encasing his hands. The stooping Firebird was an obvious mark in his gunsight.
How was it surviving? Pilot skill, or luck? The young had little of the former and, sometimes, barrels of the latter. The dive was testing the enemy plane right to the limits of its airframe. A single degree deeper and the descent would strip the wings away at the cabane or blow out the engine.
Behind his full-head helmet, Skjursón smiled. His face, so seldom seen, was marred by a grizzled tissue of scars.
At three hundred metres, the Firebird pulled out, dragging a long, aching turn up and away to avoid the ragged earth, its prop engine spitting and foundering.
Another surprise. Another admirable display of skill. Or luck.
Skjursón tilted his stick and nudged the engine, pulling out of the dive effortlessly, mocking the laboured struggles of the smaller plane. It had been locked in his sights for two minutes now.
Why hadn't he killed it?
I want to see what you've got, Skjursón thought.
The Firebird veered around a hilltop, letting the cross of its shadow flicker across the sunlit canopy, then tipped its wings hard to steer around another crag. Skjursón kept his FP1 almost level to execute a following path, ripping through the air like a hungry bird of prey. The Firebird was still in his crosshairs.
Suddenly, around the next turn, it disappeared. Skjursón frowned and swung about, assuming the boy had finally misadventured and flown into a hillside. For the first time in nearly three minutes, the gunsight was empty… visual lost...
No, not dead. There he was. The little wretch. He’d somehow flick-rolled the Firebird around the headland and swung back the way he’d come, gunning low on WEP.
Skjursón lifted his black-clad hands off the stick and clapped. Very fine indeed.
A warning note sounded and Skjursón snapped it off with a curse. He was down to reserve now, almost at the critical fuel threshold. That meant he had no more than two minutes left before he had to turn for home. More than that, and he wouldn’t make it to the beachhead aerie.
"Game’s done now," he hissed through chapped lips. He surged the FP1 forward and it went fluidly, responding perfectly, sure as a shark. Reacquire, he thought to himself. He’d made five kills already, another ace day, but this boy would make a nice round six. He’d dallied too long, playing games.
The FP1 chased and sought. The Firebird was pulling wide rolls and staying low, keeping the twisting furrows of the hill line between itself and the hunter.
Skjursón spat the most foul curse he knew. The little bastard was slipping away. By the tips of his fingers. By the teeth. He had allowed too much grace. Now the enemy was mocking him.
He got a partial alignment, then lost it again as the fugitive Firebird banked perilously around a coastal crag. They both passed so close that sand stormed up off the beach in their combined wash.
Another partial. Skjursón fired. Dazzling tracers laddered away from his machine and cut the cold morning air. Miss.
Another turn, another partial, another futile burst. Skjursón throttled up and soared around, swinging his machine out wide on the Firebird's eight. It was running for all it was worth, burning at full power. Skjursón got a true sight at last.
"Goodnight," he muttered, bored of the game now. His thumbs dug at the trigger paddle.
Cannon fire lanced down through the air ahead of him. Skjursón felt a tiny vibration and a glance told him he’d been holed in one wing. Out of the sun, a second Firebird was diving on his tail, its nose lit up with muzzle flash. Just a look told the expert captain that this second craft was piloted by an idiot, a man far less capable than the spirited boy he had been chasing. It was coming over too shallow, wobbling badly, desperately. It had no real target.
But still, it was behind him and gunning madly. The warning sounded again, impatient. He’d reached critical fuel threshold.
He was done here. Enough. Skjursón pulled the stick and powered off almost vertical, pulling out of the chase. The second Firebird went by under him as he climbed, bemused by the sudden exit.
Skjursón climbed into the sunlight, gaining altitude. He banked 180 and aimed his beloved FP1 South. This broiling air war was just getting started. There would be another day.
And another kill.

Over the Gulf, 07:01
This one was good. Daring. Young, most likely. Desperate to live. Weren’t they all?
The dive was magnificent, foolhardy. Tchristan Skjursón, captain of the first wing, decided he would like more of this boy’s kind come the showdown. The boy flew, as they said, by the teeth. Such a scream dive. Skjursón didn’t know the runty little enemy fighters could achieve that.
It seemed almost a waste to slay him.
Wound tight in his flight suit, Skjursón committed his FP1-i steeper still, adjusting the trim, slicing down through the air like a knife at point six of mach. His cockpit was dark save for the winking lights of some instruments, which reflected off the black leather gloves encasing his hands. The stooping Firebird was an obvious mark in his gunsight.
How was it surviving? Pilot skill, or luck? The young had little of the former and, sometimes, barrels of the latter. The dive was testing the enemy plane right to the limits of its airframe. A single degree deeper and the descent would strip the wings away at the cabane or blow out the engine.
Behind his full-head helmet, Skjursón smiled. His face, so seldom seen, was marred by a grizzled tissue of scars.
At three hundred metres, the Firebird pulled out, dragging a long, aching turn up and away to avoid the ragged earth, its prop engine spitting and foundering.
Another surprise. Another admirable display of skill. Or luck.
Skjursón tilted his stick and nudged the engine, pulling out of the dive effortlessly, mocking the laboured struggles of the smaller plane. It had been locked in his sights for two minutes now.
Why hadn't he killed it?
I want to see what you've got, Skjursón thought.
The Firebird veered around a hilltop, letting the cross of its shadow flicker across the sunlit canopy, then tipped its wings hard to steer around another crag. Skjursón kept his FP1 almost level to execute a following path, ripping through the air like a hungry bird of prey. The Firebird was still in his crosshairs.
Suddenly, around the next turn, it disappeared. Skjursón frowned and swung about, assuming the boy had finally misadventured and flown into a hillside. For the first time in nearly three minutes, the gunsight was empty… visual lost...
No, not dead. There he was. The little wretch. He’d somehow flick-rolled the Firebird around the headland and swung back the way he’d come, gunning low on WEP.
Skjursón lifted his black-clad hands off the stick and clapped. Very fine indeed.
A warning note sounded and Skjursón snapped it off with a curse. He was down to reserve now, almost at the critical fuel threshold. That meant he had no more than two minutes left before he had to turn for home. More than that, and he wouldn’t make it to the beachhead aerie.
"Game’s done now," he hissed through chapped lips. He surged the FP1 forward and it went fluidly, responding perfectly, sure as a shark. Reacquire, he thought to himself. He’d made five kills already, another ace day, but this boy would make a nice round six. He’d dallied too long, playing games.
The FP1 chased and sought. The Firebird was pulling wide rolls and staying low, keeping the twisting furrows of the hill line between itself and the hunter.
Skjursón spat the most foul curse he knew. The little bastard was slipping away. By the tips of his fingers. By the teeth. He had allowed too much grace. Now the enemy was mocking him.
He got a partial alignment, then lost it again as the fugitive Firebird banked perilously around a coastal crag. They both passed so close that sand stormed up off the beach in their combined wash.
Another partial. Skjursón fired. Dazzling tracers laddered away from his machine and cut the cold morning air. Miss.
Another turn, another partial, another futile burst. Skjursón throttled up and soared around, swinging his machine out wide on the Firebird's eight. It was running for all it was worth, burning at full power. Skjursón got a true sight at last.
"Goodnight," he muttered, bored of the game now. His thumbs dug at the trigger paddle.
Cannon fire lanced down through the air ahead of him. Skjursón felt a tiny vibration and a glance told him he’d been holed in one wing. Out of the sun, a second Firebird was diving on his tail, its nose lit up with muzzle flash. Just a look told the expert captain that this second craft was piloted by an idiot, a man far less capable than the spirited boy he had been chasing. It was coming over too shallow, wobbling badly, desperately. It had no real target.
But still, it was behind him and gunning madly. The warning sounded again, impatient. He’d reached critical fuel threshold.
He was done here. Enough. Skjursón pulled the stick and powered off almost vertical, pulling out of the chase. The second Firebird went by under him as he climbed, bemused by the sudden exit.
Skjursón climbed into the sunlight, gaining altitude. He banked 180 and aimed his beloved FP1 South. This broiling air war was just getting started. There would be another day.
And another kill.

The Saint Mark Angels were gathered in front of a whiteboard in a hotel conference room. The celebratory mood over having made the Round of 16 had softened and was now mixed with a dose of anxiety. Coach Rodeberg was going over strategy. 
"You all know that Cambria's Union Football is an excellent team. You also know that even the best teams can be vanquished with the right game plan and focus. They're a very aggressive team and we're strong on defense. We aren't going to beat them by trying to match their offense at this stage of the tournament. We will play to our strength. We're going to set up in a  4-2-3-1 looking for some balance and flexibility. The two defensive midfielders will protect the back four, and if they drop in, the outside backs can join in on the offense. We'll still have 8 in our own half when defending. Like the 4-3-3, pressing the ball high up the pitch can create turnovers. We need to watch for Montero, of course ... Dragonhart and Trecoup, that will be your focus. We effectively guard our home while trying to create openings for Westley. Don't take Meredith for granted either. He will be ready."
The team spent the next couple of hours reviewing the plan and then boarded the bus to take them out for practice on the pitch, anxiety slowing being replaced with determination.

The Larxian National Team's Training Ground buzzed with activity, the air thick with the sounds of whistles, shouts of coaches, and the rhythmic thud of footballs meeting boots.  Amidst this organized chaos, there was a palpable sense of focus and determination as the players pushed themselves in pursuit of excellence, pausing briefly between drills to catch their breath.
Felix Jr.: Hey, lads, how about we spice things up a bit? A round of "Keepie-Uppies" to break the monotony?
Leo Messy: (grinning) Oh, I can't resist a little challenge. Count me in!
Jordan Moon: (with a smirk) Let's see who's got the moves today.
Andres Pirlo: (laughing) I might be the oldest, but I've still got some tricks up my sleeve. I'm game!
They kicked off their friendly game of "Keepie-Uppies," the ball dancing skillfully among their feet like a choreographed spectacle. Each player contributed their unique flair, showcasing a blend of precision and artistry as they deftly maneuvered the ball, exchanging quick passes and daring flicks.
Felix Jr.: Alright, let the games begin!
The atmosphere crackled with energy as the players displayed their dazzling ball control skills. Each sought to outshine the other, weaving a tapestry of flicks, tricks, and precise touches, igniting a friendly yet fiercely competitive spirit among them.
Leo Messy: (juggling the ball) Check this out, fellas! The old magic is still there!
Jordan Moon: (dribbling with flair) Leo, don't get too comfortable. I'm here to steal the show!
Andres Pirlo: (keeping the ball moving with precision) Ah, youth! Let me show you how it's done, boys!
Felix Jr.: (quick footwork) Leo, you're not the only magician here!
Leo Messy: (attempting a fancy trick) Alright, Felix, let's see if you can keep up with this!
Leo Messy: (pretending) What? How? Felix? You've got moves, kid!
Adrian Garcia: That's some skill, Andres!
Robert del Piero: Come on, Jordan, show them who's boss!
Jordan Moon: (grinning) You're all in trouble now! Time to turn up the heat!
Andres Pirlo: (visibly exhausted) Alright, alright, that's enough fun for today, boys!
Leo Messy: (smiling) Good hustle, everyone! Now, who's hungry? Let's grab some grub!
Jordan Moon: (laughing) Leo, almost got you there! Next time, maybe!
Leo Messy: (winking) Keep trying, Moon! I'm not getting rusty just yet!
Felix Jr.: (with a smirk) Leo, one-nil to me! Better luck next time, eh?
Leo Messy: (grinning) You got lucky, kid! But watch out, I'll get you next time!
The players walked away from the training ground, their jokes and laughter bouncing around. Their bond grew stronger as they teased each other, filling the air with a sense of unity and joy. These moments of fun were just as vital as their hard work, strengthening their team spirit.

Over the Gulf, 06:35
In the side rush of dawn, the distant peaks glowed pink, like some travesty of a fondant cake. Hard shadows infilled the cavities like ink. Streamers of white cloud strung out in the freezing air, 2000 metres below.
Nock Leader was just a cruciform speck in the bright air ahead. He started to turn, ten degrees to the north-west. Òmah tilted the stick, following, rolling. The horizon swung up and the world moved around. Slowly, slowly. He heard the knocking sound and ignored it. At least the inclinometer was still working. As he came around and levelled the column, Òmah reached forward and flicked the brass dial of the fuel gauge again. It still read full, which couldn’t be right. They’d been up for forty-eight minutes. He took off a gauntlet and flicked the gauge once more with his bare fingers. He felt sure the lined mitten had been dulling his blows.
The dial remained at full.
He saw how pinched and blue his hand had become, and pulled the gauntlet back on quickly. It felt balmy in his insulated flightsuit, but the cabin temp read minus eight. There was no sound, except for the background roar of the engine. Òmah looked up and around, remembering to maintain his visual scanning. Just sky. Sundogs flaring in his visor. Nock Three just abeam of him, a silhouette, trailing vapour. The altimeter read 2800 metres.
The radio gurgled. “Nock Leader to Nock Flight. One pass West and we turn for home. Keep formation tight."  They made another lazy roll. The landscape rose up in his port vision. Òmah saw brittle flashes of light far below. Artillery fire on the islands.
He heard the knocking again. It sounded as if someone was crouching behind the frame of his armoured seat, tapping the spars with a hammer. These engines always made a burbling, flatulent noise, but this didn’t seem right to him.
He keyed his radio. "Nock Leader, this is Nock Four. I’ve–" There was a sudden, loud bang. The channel squealed like a stabbed pig.
The world turned upside down.
"Oh throne! Oh crap! Oh shit!” a voice was shouting. Òmah realised it was his own.
G-force pummelled him. His P7E Firebird was tumbling hard. Light and dark, sky and land, up and over, up and over. Òmah choked back nausea and throttled down desperately. The radio was incoherent with frantic chatter.
"Nock Four! Nock Four!"
Òmah regained control and levelled. He had lost at least a thousand metres. He got the horizon true and looked around in the vain hope of seeing someone friendly. Then he cried out involuntarily as something fell past his nosecone.
It was another Firebird, one wing shorn off in a cascade of torn struts and body plate. Flames were sucking back out of its air intakes. It arced down and away like a comet, trailing smoke as it went spinning towards the ground. It became a speck. A smaller speck. A little blink of light. Òmah felt his guts tighten and acid frothed inside him. Fear, like a stink, permeated the little cockpit. Something else flashed past him.
Just a glimpse, moving so fast. There and gone. A memory of black wings.
"Nock Four! Break! Break and turn! There’s one right on you!"
Òmah leaned on the stick and kicked the rudder. The world rolled again. He put his nose up and throttled hard. The Firebird bucked angrily and the knocking came again. Throne of Stars. He’d thought his bird had malfunctioned, but it wasn’t that at all. They’d been stung. He leant forward against the harness and peered out of his cockpit dome. The aluminum skin of his right wing was holed and torn. Night’s teeth, he’d been shot.
He pushed the stick forward to grab some speed, then turned out left in a hard climb.
The dawn sky was full of smoke: long strings of grey vapour and little black blooms that looked like dirty cotton. Nock Flight’s formation had broken apart and they were scattering across the heavens.
Òmah couldn’t even see the bats.
No, that wasn’t true. He made one, bending in to chase Nock Five, tracer fire licking from its guns.  He rolled towards it, flipping the scope of his reflector sight into position before resting his thumb on the stick-top stud that activated the quad cannons in the nose.
The bat danced wildly across the glass reticule of the gunsight. It refused to sit. Òmah cursed and began to utter a prayer to the sun to lift his wings and make his aim true. He waggled the stick, pitching, rolling, trying to correct, but the more he tried, the more the bat slipped wildly off the gunsight to one side or the other.
There was a little smoky flash ahead, and suddenly Òmah's Firebird was riding through a horizontal pelt of black rain.
No. Not rain. Oil. Then debris. Pieces of glittering metal, buckled machine parts, shreds of aluminum. Òmah cried out in surprise as the oil washed out his forward view. He heard the pattering impact of the debris striking off his nose plate and wing faces. The bat had chalked Nock Five and Òmah was running in through the debris stream. Any large piece of wreckage would hole him and kill him as surely as cannon-fire. And if so much as a screw went down the intake of his engine…
Òmah wrenched on the stick and came nose-up. Light returned as he came out of the smoke belt, and slipstream flowed the oil away off his canopy. It ran in quivering lines, slow and sticky, like blood.
Almost immediately, he had to roll hard to port to avoid hitting another Firebird head on. He heard a strangled cry over the radio. The little dark interceptor filled his field of view for a second and then was gone back over his shoulder.
His violent roll had been too brutal. He inverted for a moment and struggled to right himself as the hills spread out overhead. That knocking again. That damn knocking. He was bleeding speed now, and the experimental engines of the P7E had a nasty habit of flaming out if it struggled too hard. He began to nurse it up and round, gunning the engine as hard as he dared. Two planes rushed by, so fast he didn’t have time to determine their type, then another three went perpendicular across his bow. They were all Firebirds. One was venting blue smoke in a long, chuffing plume.
"Nock Leader! Nock Leader!" Òmah called.
Two of the Firebirds were already climbing away out of visual. The sun blinded him. The third, the wounded bird, was diving slowly, scribing the sky with its smoke.
He saw the bat clearly then.
At his two, five hundred metres, dropping in on the Firebird it had most likely already mauled. For the first time in his four weeks of operational flying, Òmah got a good look at the elusive foe. It resembled his plane, superficially, the cockpit set far back above the drive at the point where the bow of the blade-wings met. A jet interceptor, the cream of the enemy air force. In the dispersal room briefs, they’d talked about these killers being dirt brown or green, but this was pearl-white, like ice, like alabaster. The canopy was tinted black, like a dark eye-socket in a polished skull.
Òmah had expected to feel fear, but he got a thrill of adrenaline instead. He leaned forward, hunched down in the Firebird’s armoured cockpit, and opened the throttle, sweeping in on the bat’s five. It didn’t appear to have seen him. It was lining up, leisurely, on the wounded plane.
He flipped the toggle switch. Guns live.
Closing at three hundred metres. Òmah rapidly calculated his angle of deflection, estimated he’d have to lead his shot by about five degrees. Reverent eye, he had it…
He thumbed the firing stud. The Firebird shuddered slightly as the cannons lit up. He saw flashflames licking up from under the curve of the nose cone. He heard and felt the thump of the breechblocks.
The bat had gone.
He came clear, pulling a wide turn at about two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. The engagement had been over in an instant. Had he killed it? He sat up into the clear blister of the canopy like an animal looking out of its burrow, craning around. If he’d hit it, surely there would be smoke? The only smoke he could see was about a thousand metres above in the pale blue sky where the main portion of the dogfight was still rolling.
He turned. First rule of air combat: take a shot and pull off. Never stick with a target, never go back. That made you a target. But still he had to know. He had to.
He dipped his starboard wing, searching below for a trace of fire.  Nothing.
Òmah levelled off.
And there it was. Right alongside him.
He cried out in astonishment. The bat was less than a wing’s breadth away, riding along in parallel with him. There was not a mark on its burnished white fuselage.  It was playing with him.
Panic rose inside pilot cadet Zhep det Òmah. He knew his valiant little Firebird could neither outrun nor out-climb the enemy's craft. He throttled back hard, and threw on his speed brakes, hoping the sudden manoeuvre would cause the big machine to overshoot him.
For a moment, it vanished. Then it was back, on his other side, copying his brake-dive. Òmah swore.. He was so close to it that he could see the jet nozzles on the belly under the blade-wings. It could out-dance any prop craft, climbing, braking, even slowing to a near-stall.
Òmah refused to accept he was out-classed, refused to admit he was about to die. He twisted the stick, kicked the rudder right over and went into the deepest dive he dared execute. Any deeper, and the Firebird's wings would shear off its airframe. The world rushed up, filling his vision. He heard the air screaming. He saw the glory of the land ascending to meet him. His land. His home. The home he had joined up to save. Behind him, the pearl-white enemy machine tucked in effortlessly and followed him down. 

THE REAL CHALLENGE
 
Good day football fans! We're reporting from Ryxtylopia. The Orangutan Rangers qualified to the Round of 16 after getting 1st place in Group D.

 
 
 
 
Behind the Mastermind: Mikel Artery
Mikel Artery,38 years old,we can call him as the greatest coach in football history. With bronze medal in 1421 Esferiad,2nd place in 1422 World Cup,and now top of Grouping round. 
Artery was born and raised in Permata Pantai. His father was a football player for Permata Pantai FC. Artery love football too. He played representing Permata Pantai Youth. Unluckily,no no club wanted him. 
AT age 20,he completed his C coaching license and degree in corporate management,then started to coach Permata Pantai FC Youth. He won the Reserve league at age 21. Insanely,he won as a coach,not a player. Then at age 28,he started to manage Permata Pantai FC main team. He teh won the Arifiyyah Premier League and Sultan Arifiyyah Cup few years ago. He was given the responsibility to coach the Orangutan Rangers 3 years ago,and doing a very well job 
With Classic 433 attacking and sometimes switching to 4231 formation,the team be ome unstoppable. Using Muhammad Nazhim as the playmaker,and Kane as the Target man is very brilliant move. Traditionally play passing style,giving advantage to the team to hold the most possession in the game. 
Hopefully the great performance will continue in the qualification round till the final. Artery,bring the Cup to home!

Ambassador Katrina Edelgard ducked through the Ryxenian back streets with surprising swiftness. She looked around to make sure she was alone. Liking what she saw, she pulled out her phone and made a call.
“The goods are secured, Chief,” she reported.
“Very good, Katrina. Get back here as soon as you are able.”
“Of course.” She hung up.
The goods in question were tightly wrapped in a large, nondescript bundle under her arm. Edelgard herself was not dressed to her usual standards, but had donned worn street clothes. She didn’t exactly look at home in the slums, and was clearly still a foreigner, but stuck out far less than she would have in her full suit.
She had avoided detection to this point, but as she now rounded a corner, she found herself walking directly towards a pair of police officers. She internally cursed her luck, but did not break stride—the last thing she wanted to do was to act more suspicious.
“Halt,” one of the officers barked.
Edelgard complied.
The other officer smiled. “We just have a couple questions, ma’am.”
“It is my understanding that this is not a restricted area,” Edelgard challenged. “I assure you I’m not with the press.”
“That’s not the issue, ma’am.” The officer gestured to the package in the ambassador’s hands. “I’m going to need to see that.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Officer. My client will be upset if this is tampered with at all.”
“I’m sure they’ll understand,” said the officer, moving to grab the package.
In a single movement Edelgard whisked the package out of reach with one hand, and pulled out her credentials with the other. “I am on diplomatic business for the Republic of Overthinkers. If there is a problem, you are welcome to discuss it with my superior, Ambassador Witz, across town.”
The officers backed up, and Edelgard was allowed to pass.
Edelgard soon left the slums for the more respectable part of the city. She strolled into a fine hotel and took the elevator up. She knocked on the door of Room 417.
Coach Luigi opened the door, then turned to holler back into the room. “Alright guys, the tacos are here!”
A resounding cheer came back in response.
Edelgard opened her package, and distributed quality Ryxtylopian street tacos to very hungry football players and staff gathered in Coach’s suite. She did not remain long herself, though. Luigi saw her check her phone, see something she didn’t like, and leave the room with her share of the food.
Twenty minutes later, Luigi got a text from her. Meet me in my suite. Alone.
“Wendell. Come in.”
Despite having been here for weeks, Edelgard’s room in the hotel was as impeccably neat as the diplomat herself. Only the single suitcase in the closet, and the laptop sitting on the desk, indicated that the room was occupied at all. She let Luigi into the room and shut the door behind him.
“There’s something you may want to see,” she said, as she walked over to the laptop.
Her browser was open to the BrownNewsTV video, which had been released earlier that night. Luigi watched in shock as Lucille Lyons finally revealed herself, only to disparage his team and everything he had built over the past few years at the national level.
As the video ended, he could only shake his head in disbelief. “I’ll be damned. If anything she said about the team was true, she sure didn’t bring it up to me. And I gave multiple opportuni—“
“It’s not really my concern, Coach,” Edelgard interjected, “it simply seemed fair to make you aware of what was being claimed. As far as my department is concerned, this is a petty domestic dispute, so my hands are tied.”
Luigi sighed bitterly. “I imagine you’d tell me that making a statement wouldn’t make matters any better.”
“Not necessarily,” Edelgard shrugged, “and the optics of ignoring the allegations may be worse than dismissing them. But you have a PR team for that.”
“It just sucks, you know? Yeah, Lucille was pretty disconnected from the team, but I always thought that was by choice. Now she’s acting like we’d hunt her down and shut her up if we knew where she was. Like we’re some Zoranian crime ring.”
“You can’t control what people say about you,” Edelgard said. Then, in a lower voice, she added, “but you can control how it’s perceived.”
Luigi raised an eyebrow. “What are you suggesting?”
“There’s a young man I met while I was traveling with the rugby team last time.”
“A Dalimbari?”
“Heavens no. An Overthinker. Got himself into trouble there—I actually don’t know how he made it out. But he might have the perfect skill set for this.”
“To do what, exactly? To silence her?”
“Of course not. But to undermine her credibility.”
Luigi didn’t respond, but seemed intrigued. Edelgard took out a notepad and pen, and wrote down a name and phone number.
“Up to you if you give him a call. Just remember, I didn’t officially endorse this.”
She gave a curt nod as Luigi took the paper and left the room. He stood in the hallway for a moment, studying the note.
Conrad Ellen
+3 33 204 98 861

Over the Gulf, 06:35
In the side rush of dawn, the distant peaks glowed pink, like some travesty of a fondant cake. Hard shadows infilled the cavities like ink. Streamers of white cloud strung out in the freezing air, 2000 metres below.
Nock Leader was just a cruciform speck in the bright air ahead. He started to turn, ten degrees to the north-west. Òmah tilted the stick, following, rolling. The horizon swung up and the world moved around. Slowly, slowly. He heard the knocking sound and ignored it. At least the inclinometer was still working. As he came around and levelled the column, Òmah reached forward and flicked the brass dial of the fuel gauge again. It still read full, which couldn’t be right. They’d been up for forty-eight minutes. He took off a gauntlet and flicked the gauge once more with his bare fingers. He felt sure the lined mitten had been dulling his blows.
The dial remained at full.
He saw how pinched and blue his hand had become, and pulled the gauntlet back on quickly. It felt balmy in his insulated flightsuit, but the cabin temp read minus eight. There was no sound, except for the background roar of the engine. Òmah looked up and around, remembering to maintain his visual scanning. Just sky. Sundogs flaring in his visor. Nock Three just abeam of him, a silhouette, trailing vapour. The altimeter read 2800 metres.
The radio gurgled. “Nock Leader to Nock Flight. One pass West and we turn for home. Keep formation tight."  They made another lazy roll. The landscape rose up in his port vision. Òmah saw brittle flashes of light far below. Artillery fire on the islands.
He heard the knocking again. It sounded as if someone was crouching behind the frame of his armoured seat, tapping the spars with a hammer. These engines always made a burbling, flatulent noise, but this didn’t seem right to him.
He keyed his radio. "Nock Leader, this is Nock Four. I’ve–" There was a sudden, loud bang. The channel squealed like a stabbed pig.
The world turned upside down.
"Oh throne! Oh crap! Oh shit!” a voice was shouting. Òmah realised it was his own.
G-force pummelled him. His P7E Firebird was tumbling hard. Light and dark, sky and land, up and over, up and over. Òmah choked back nausea and throttled down desperately. The radio was incoherent with frantic chatter.
"Nock Four! Nock Four!"
Òmah regained control and levelled. He had lost at least a thousand metres. He got the horizon true and looked around in the vain hope of seeing someone friendly. Then he cried out involuntarily as something fell past his nosecone.
It was another Firebird, one wing shorn off in a cascade of torn struts and body plate. Flames were sucking back out of its air intakes. It arced down and away like a comet, trailing smoke as it went spinning towards the ground. It became a speck. A smaller speck. A little blink of light. Òmah felt his guts tighten and acid frothed inside him. Fear, like a stink, permeated the little cockpit. Something else flashed past him.
Just a glimpse, moving so fast. There and gone. A memory of black wings.
"Nock Four! Break! Break and turn! There’s one right on you!"
Òmah leaned on the stick and kicked the rudder. The world rolled again. He put his nose up and throttled hard. The Firebird bucked angrily and the knocking came again. Throne of Stars. He’d thought his bird had malfunctioned, but it wasn’t that at all. They’d been stung. He leant forward against the harness and peered out of his cockpit dome. The aluminum skin of his right wing was holed and torn. Night’s teeth, he’d been shot.
He pushed the stick forward to grab some speed, then turned out left in a hard climb.
The dawn sky was full of smoke: long strings of grey vapour and little black blooms that looked like dirty cotton. Nock Flight’s formation had broken apart and they were scattering across the heavens.
Òmah couldn’t even see the bats.
No, that wasn’t true. He made one, bending in to chase Nock Five, tracer fire licking from its guns.  He rolled towards it, flipping the scope of his reflector sight into position before resting his thumb on the stick-top stud that activated the quad cannons in the nose.
The bat danced wildly across the glass reticule of the gunsight. It refused to sit. Òmah cursed and began to utter a prayer to the sun to lift his wings and make his aim true. He waggled the stick, pitching, rolling, trying to correct, but the more he tried, the more the bat slipped wildly off the gunsight to one side or the other.
There was a little smoky flash ahead, and suddenly Òmah's Firebird was riding through a horizontal pelt of black rain.
No. Not rain. Oil. Then debris. Pieces of glittering metal, buckled machine parts, shreds of aluminum. Òmah cried out in surprise as the oil washed out his forward view. He heard the pattering impact of the debris striking off his nose plate and wing faces. The bat had chalked Nock Five and Òmah was running in through the debris stream. Any large piece of wreckage would hole him and kill him as surely as cannon-fire. And if so much as a screw went down the intake of his engine…
Òmah wrenched on the stick and came nose-up. Light returned as he came out of the smoke belt, and slipstream flowed the oil away off his canopy. It ran in quivering lines, slow and sticky, like blood.
Almost immediately, he had to roll hard to port to avoid hitting another Firebird head on. He heard a strangled cry over the radio. The little dark interceptor filled his field of view for a second and then was gone back over his shoulder.
His violent roll had been too brutal. He inverted for a moment and struggled to right himself as the hills spread out overhead. That knocking again. That damn knocking. He was bleeding speed now, and the experimental engines of the P7E had a nasty habit of flaming out if it struggled too hard. He began to nurse it up and round, gunning the engine as hard as he dared. Two planes rushed by, so fast he didn’t have time to determine their type, then another three went perpendicular across his bow. They were all Firebirds. One was venting blue smoke in a long, chuffing plume.
"Nock Leader! Nock Leader!" Òmah called.
Two of the Firebirds were already climbing away out of visual. The sun blinded him. The third, the wounded bird, was diving slowly, scribing the sky with its smoke.
He saw the bat clearly then.
At his two, five hundred metres, dropping in on the Firebird it had most likely already mauled. For the first time in his four weeks of operational flying, Òmah got a good look at the elusive foe. It resembled his plane, superficially, the cockpit set far back above the drive at the point where the bow of the blade-wings met. A jet interceptor, the cream of the enemy air force. In the dispersal room briefs, they’d talked about these killers being dirt brown or green, but this was pearl-white, like ice, like alabaster. The canopy was tinted black, like a dark eye-socket in a polished skull.
Òmah had expected to feel fear, but he got a thrill of adrenaline instead. He leaned forward, hunched down in the Firebird’s armoured cockpit, and opened the throttle, sweeping in on the bat’s five. It didn’t appear to have seen him. It was lining up, leisurely, on the wounded plane.
He flipped the toggle switch. Guns live.
Closing at three hundred metres. Òmah rapidly calculated his angle of deflection, estimated he’d have to lead his shot by about five degrees. Reverent eye, he had it…
He thumbed the firing stud. The Firebird shuddered slightly as the cannons lit up. He saw flashflames licking up from under the curve of the nose cone. He heard and felt the thump of the breechblocks.
The bat had gone.
He came clear, pulling a wide turn at about two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. The engagement had been over in an instant. Had he killed it? He sat up into the clear blister of the canopy like an animal looking out of its burrow, craning around. If he’d hit it, surely there would be smoke? The only smoke he could see was about a thousand metres above in the pale blue sky where the main portion of the dogfight was still rolling.
He turned. First rule of air combat: take a shot and pull off. Never stick with a target, never go back. That made you a target. But still he had to know. He had to.
He dipped his starboard wing, searching below for a trace of fire.  Nothing.
Òmah levelled off.
And there it was. Right alongside him.
He cried out in astonishment. The bat was less than a wing’s breadth away, riding along in parallel with him. There was not a mark on its burnished white fuselage.  It was playing with him.
Panic rose inside pilot cadet Zhep det Òmah. He knew his valiant little Firebird could neither outrun nor out-climb the enemy's craft. He throttled back hard, and threw on his speed brakes, hoping the sudden manoeuvre would cause the big machine to overshoot him.
For a moment, it vanished. Then it was back, on his other side, copying his brake-dive. Òmah swore.. He was so close to it that he could see the jet nozzles on the belly under the blade-wings. It could out-dance any prop craft, climbing, braking, even slowing to a near-stall.
Òmah refused to accept he was out-classed, refused to admit he was about to die. He twisted the stick, kicked the rudder right over and went into the deepest dive he dared execute. Any deeper, and the Firebird's wings would shear off its airframe. The world rushed up, filling his vision. He heard the air screaming. He saw the glory of the land ascending to meet him. His land. His home. The home he had joined up to save. Behind him, the pearl-white enemy machine tucked in effortlessly and followed him down. 

Lavender Festival Preparations
Urido, Lavandula, Giovanniland - Preparations are currently in full force for the end-of-year Lavender Festival, an important celebration in Giovannilandian culture. This event is one of the most important Giovannilandian holidays, along with others like the Empire Day (January 16th) about the founding of the Giovannian Empire; Kingdom Day (June 15th) about the transition from the Empire to the modern-day Kingdom; Abrentan Day (August 29th) about the arrival of the Abrentan people in Lavender Island from Saint Mark; and Constitution Day (October 30th) about the nation's current constitution.
The Lavender Festival happens during the week before New Year, starting from December 25th, a reason it's also often considered together with New Year composing its final day. It dates back to the age of the Lavandulan Empire, and archaeological records point to the first edition of this celebration being held around 1100 BF. The tradition has passed down generation to generation ever since, from the days of the Lavandulan Empire, then the post-imperial Duchy of Quorivo, and continues to the present day. 
In Giovanniland, the lavender is a symbol of renewal and prosperity, hence the festival's date just before the New Year. However, the date has been changed a number of times because the modern-day calendar of Giovanniland has its origins in the Giovannian Empire and its antecessors in the Abrentan civilization, differing from earlier calendar used in the island. During the Imperial days the celebration was expanded beyond the city of Urido and started to happen all across the nation, a status then enshrined into law via the Holidays Act of 1253.
The nation celebrates the holiday through various events, such as the planting of lavenders in home gardens some time before December so they can be fully grown by the time of the event, and decoration of houses with lavender bunches and perfumes. Food recipes featuring lavender are also common, such as the famous lavender pasta, cupcakes, tea, and lemonade, among others. Images of various lavender products made in Giovanniland are shown below.

Going past 16'
 
For the round of 16, Ryxtylopia would be facing off against Dalimbar, a nation that had gone 4th place in group D only winning one match, whilst bearly edging out Libterraria on points, the odds for the Vultures on that regard looked good, since they had gone unbeaten during the groups despite not winning all their matches.
As well as this the ambience for the opposing team would be... hostile to say the least, as fans of Ryxtylopia wanted the team to go on to the next round, instead of exiting the tournament in the round of 16 like in the previous year, where after extra time Ryxtylopia lost to eventual 3rd place winner: Cambria.
However for the players this would also mean a bit more pressure, as if Ryxtylopia exited on the Round of 16 at home it would be a national embarrasment and attacks towards the team lead by Garravez as well as the Dalimbari players could be expected, incidents withing Ryxtylopian football happened often with some of the more infamous moments being:
 
The "I can't hear you!" Incident:
Happened in 1401, during a game between Rio Priava and Bixas, when Bixas defeated Priava at home 5-1, it was then to celebrate the 5th goal that their striker Tarvo Giaxva put both of his hands in his hears, as mockery to the boo's from the crowd, this caused Priava supporters to invade the pitch, which had the match suspended and ended early.
 
The "Upside down U" Incident:
Happened in 1399, in a game between rivals Ystiandes di Ryxtylopia and the University of Ryxenia, Ystiandes had recently beat the U. of Ryxenia 3-2 in a very intense game, and for their next match during the season, fans from Ystiandes hung a very big banner with an upside down U under their drawn mascot, this ended with the internal barriers in the Istadio Carrasoco being broken and a huge brawl ensuing leaving over 30 injured, with the game being cancelled.
 
Libre after relegation:
In 1401, Club Atletico Libre got relegated, by the time they got back to the first division in the following season they would face rivals Diportiva Tsalapaní, in a game that resulted in pure chaos at the Istadio Lybirtad, where Tsalapaní supporters brought a huge banner reading: "RED! Tell me how did it feel playing in the B?" whilst chanting and mocking the local crowd, which ended in a brawl between both sides, injuring around 50 people.
 
The Brivas Bar Affair:
Again involving Bixas and Priava was an affair at a bar in Ryxenia in 1414, where Bixas supporters often gathered to cheer for their team, however after Priava won the game 2-1' their supporters marched to the bar, and started smashing the windows with rocks, attacking Bixas supporters leaving the place, this eventually resulted in police intervention with around 16 injuries.
 
"Bixas you're a ________":
In 1415 during a game between Bixas and Priava, striker Ernysto Guivillana scored a late winner for Priava in the 90th +2nd minute, after which while being interviewed by press he shouted a slur directed towards Bixas fans, this inmediatley got him banned for several months, and the next day his house was raided and trashed by Bixas supporters. Ernysto would be forced to move out of Ryxtylopia due to the hate, whilst Priava supporters will continually back his actions.
 
The "B" incident:
In 1404, Rio Priava dropped for the first time to the second division of Ryxtylopian football, this caused their fans to riot and set fire to the Istadio Franco Rivalda, probably one of the most iconic moments in sporting in this corner of the continent, the next time they saw Bixas in the first division, Bixas supporters prepared to emulate Tsalapaní's mockery of Libre after their relegation, bringing a giant B to the game in the Istadio Arvaldí N. Guivarra, and singing a chant about Priava's time in the "B".
 
All theese incidents were only made worst by "Bands" (basically ultras for ryxtylopian clubs) who harrassed, attacked and mocked eachother to death, part of the reason why Ryxtylopian supporters reffer to themselves as just "The Band" is cause when the national team plays, most of theese rivalries and differences are set aside as all supporters for once head to the stadium wearing the same color and singing the same chants, which was a problem considering many of theese supporters were also known for arousing crowds and being violent.
Due to this, security for the match had already been massivley ramped up, and the players told to expect violence, not only the Ryxtylopians but also this was warned to the Dalimbari players in advance.
 
Meanwhile the team got ready, Garravez decided on the 4-1-3-2 formation, to better handle Dalimbari attacks and hopefully make swift counter-attacks, the players agreed with this for the most part, the lineup could soak up dalimbari pressure on the back and quickly move the ball to the forwards for an attack.
 

 
However the players arrived early at the stadium, and trained, pressure to win the match would be unbelivably high, and whilst the chanting of the crowds could maybe scare the Dalimbaris, if the game was lost the team expected for all out anger to break out.
And as the team arrived to the stadium before the game the hostility in the air was made clear by the crowd outside singing: We have the banners and the drums.
 
 
We have the the banners and the drums:
 
Aquxi i una guirrxa, aquxi i una guirrxa.
Y Ryxtylopia sira primeria.
Tynimvos las bandyras, y lo bombxos tambxién.
Yl Azuil i Amairillo vai volair otrxa vez.
La polixia tonta nai nos vai a detixner.
Ryxtylopia si pripara i nai va a ditiner.
Por qui in iste campó:
Ryxtylopia vai a la guerra con la bandá tambxién.
Aquxi i una guirrxa, aquxi i una guirrxa.
Y Ryxtylopia sira primeria.
Tynimvos las bandyras, y lo bombxos tambxién.
Yl Azuil i Amairillo vai volair otrxa vez.
La polixia tonta nai nos vai a detixner.
Ryxtylopia si pripara i nai va a ditiner.
Por qui in iste campó:
Ryxtylopia vai a la guerra con la bandá tambxién.
 
Here there’s a war, here there’s a war.
And Ryxtylopia will be first.
We have the banners and the drums.
And the Blue and Yellow will fly again.
The dumb police won’t stop us.
Ryxtylopia gets ready, and its not going to stop.
Because in this field:
Ryxtylopia goes to war and the band goes aswell.
Here there’s a war, here there’s a war.
And Ryxtylopia will be first.
We have the banners and the drums.
And the Blue and Yellow will fly again.
The dumb police won’t stop us.
Ryxtylopia gets ready, and its not going to stop.
Because in this field:
Ryxtylopia goes to war and the band goes aswell.
 

The Rise of Necrobotics: Unraveling Saint-Josalyn's Eight-Legged Enigma
"The Rise of Necrobotics: Unraveling Saint-Josalyn's Eight-Legged Enigma"
The city of Saint-Josalyn became a backdrop for the unfolding narrative, as the team grappled with the ethical implications of their work. The once-contained experiment, now a beacon of scientific ambition, raised questions about the responsible advancement of technology and the unforeseen consequences of manipulating nature.
"Unraveling Saint-Josalyn's Eight-Legged Enigma" became a compelling tale of ingenuity, ethical dilemmas, and the relentless pursuit of understanding the intricate dance between biology and robotics. As the necrobotic spiders entered the spotlight, Saint-Josalyn found itself at the crossroads of scientific progress, prompting a reevaluation of the delicate balance between innovation and ethical considerations in the quest for knowledge.
In the discreet confines of Queen's College, nestled in the heart of Saint-Josalyn, a scientific odyssey unfolded, delving into the intersection of cutting-edge research and the enigmatic world of necrobotic spiders. Driven by the relentless pursuit of knowledge, a team of researchers embarked on a groundbreaking experiment that would redefine the boundaries of bioengineering.
At the helm of this venture was Dr. Karl Einarsen, a seasoned entomologist. Guided by his vision, the team, including the formidable Dr. Anu Sildre, a geneticist, and the innovative, Dr. Marek Olsen, set out to unravel the secrets hidden within the realm of necrobotics.
Necrobotics, the fusion of robotics and the study of necrotic spiders, became the focal point of the team's endeavors. The researchers sought to harness the unique attributes of these spiders and integrate them seamlessly with cutting-edge robotic technology.
Within the state-of-the-art laboratories of Queen's College, Dr. Sildre's expertise in genetic manipulation and Dr. Olsen's mastery of robotics converged. The goal was to create a groundbreaking synergy where the innate capabilities of necrotic spiders could be augmented and controlled through meticulous engineering.
As the experiment progressed, the necrobotic spiders, now imbued with enhanced capabilities, underwent rigorous testing. The researchers scrutinized their venomous prowess, adaptability, and intelligence, pushing the boundaries of what was previously thought possible. The laboratory became a crucible of innovation, where the relentless pursuit of knowledge met the tangible realities of arachnid bioengineering.

NEXT MATCH, A TOUGH ONE! CANDELUIANS HAVE TO BE STRONG!
soccer match - Made with PosterMyWall (2).mp4   We DON'T have too much time.



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Hello candeluians, i'm Nico and i'm here to give you every information you might want about today's match for our national players.
The nation that will go against them is from United Adaikes, a nation located in... it was Polaris right, yeah, Polaris.
Last year they were ranked as the 9th place, pretty good if you ask me.
......that's pretty much it, Gabri hasn't got anything more to add to what i said.
We of Tiveronia 'I Zuja are sorry for giving you such a short article, but gave you all the info we had. with this we'll see you tomorrow to give you the results, and as always, Keep Fannin', Football fans!










Lunga Vià al 'emperator!

Over the Gulf, 06:35
In the side rush of dawn, the distant peaks glowed pink, like some travesty of a fondant cake. Hard shadows infilled the cavities like ink. Streamers of white cloud strung out in the freezing air, 2000 metres below.
Nock Leader was just a cruciform speck in the bright air ahead. He started to turn, ten degrees to the north-west. Òmah tilted the stick, following, rolling. The horizon swung up and the world moved around. Slowly, slowly. He heard the knocking sound and ignored it. At least the inclinometer was still working. As he came around and levelled the column, Òmah reached forward and flicked the brass dial of the fuel gauge again. It still read full, which couldn’t be right. They’d been up for forty-eight minutes. He took off a gauntlet and flicked the gauge once more with his bare fingers. He felt sure the lined mitten had been dulling his blows.
The dial remained at full.
He saw how pinched and blue his hand had become, and pulled the gauntlet back on quickly. It felt balmy in his insulated flightsuit, but the cabin temp read minus eight. There was no sound, except for the background roar of the engine. Òmah looked up and around, remembering to maintain his visual scanning. Just sky. Sundogs flaring in his visor. Nock Three just abeam of him, a silhouette, trailing vapour. The altimeter read 2800 metres.
The radio gurgled. “Nock Leader to Nock Flight. One pass West and we turn for home. Keep formation tight."  They made another lazy roll. The landscape rose up in his port vision. Òmah saw brittle flashes of light far below. Artillery fire on the islands.
He heard the knocking again. It sounded as if someone was crouching behind the frame of his armoured seat, tapping the spars with a hammer. These engines always made a burbling, flatulent noise, but this didn’t seem right to him.
He keyed his radio. "Nock Leader, this is Nock Four. I’ve–" There was a sudden, loud bang. The channel squealed like a stabbed pig.
The world turned upside down.
"Oh throne! Oh crap! Oh shit!” a voice was shouting. Òmah realised it was his own.
G-force pummelled him. His P7E Firebird was tumbling hard. Light and dark, sky and land, up and over, up and over. Òmah choked back nausea and throttled down desperately. The radio was incoherent with frantic chatter.
"Nock Four! Nock Four!"
Òmah regained control and levelled. He had lost at least a thousand metres. He got the horizon true and looked around in the vain hope of seeing someone friendly. Then he cried out involuntarily as something fell past his nosecone.
It was another Firebird, one wing shorn off in a cascade of torn struts and body plate. Flames were sucking back out of its air intakes. It arced down and away like a comet, trailing smoke as it went spinning towards the ground. It became a speck. A smaller speck. A little blink of light. Òmah felt his guts tighten and acid frothed inside him. Fear, like a stink, permeated the little cockpit. Something else flashed past him.
Just a glimpse, moving so fast. There and gone. A memory of black wings.
"Nock Four! Break! Break and turn! There’s one right on you!"
Òmah leaned on the stick and kicked the rudder. The world rolled again. He put his nose up and throttled hard. The Firebird bucked angrily and the knocking came again. Throne of Stars. He’d thought his bird had malfunctioned, but it wasn’t that at all. They’d been stung. He leant forward against the harness and peered out of his cockpit dome. The aluminum skin of his right wing was holed and torn. Night’s teeth, he’d been shot.
He pushed the stick forward to grab some speed, then turned out left in a hard climb.
The dawn sky was full of smoke: long strings of grey vapour and little black blooms that looked like dirty cotton. Nock Flight’s formation had broken apart and they were scattering across the heavens.
Òmah couldn’t even see the bats.
No, that wasn’t true. He made one, bending in to chase Nock Five, tracer fire licking from its guns.  He rolled towards it, flipping the scope of his reflector sight into position before resting his thumb on the stick-top stud that activated the quad cannons in the nose.
The bat danced wildly across the glass reticule of the gunsight. It refused to sit. Òmah cursed and began to utter a prayer to the sun to lift his wings and make his aim true. He waggled the stick, pitching, rolling, trying to correct, but the more he tried, the more the bat slipped wildly off the gunsight to one side or the other.
There was a little smoky flash ahead, and suddenly Òmah's Firebird was riding through a horizontal pelt of black rain.
No. Not rain. Oil. Then debris. Pieces of glittering metal, buckled machine parts, shreds of aluminum. Òmah cried out in surprise as the oil washed out his forward view. He heard the pattering impact of the debris striking off his nose plate and wing faces. The bat had chalked Nock Five and Òmah was running in through the debris stream. Any large piece of wreckage would hole him and kill him as surely as cannon-fire. And if so much as a screw went down the intake of his engine…
Òmah wrenched on the stick and came nose-up. Light returned as he came out of the smoke belt, and slipstream flowed the oil away off his canopy. It ran in quivering lines, slow and sticky, like blood.
Almost immediately, he had to roll hard to port to avoid hitting another Firebird head on. He heard a strangled cry over the radio. The little dark interceptor filled his field of view for a second and then was gone back over his shoulder.
His violent roll had been too brutal. He inverted for a moment and struggled to right himself as the hills spread out overhead. That knocking again. That damn knocking. He was bleeding speed now, and the experimental engines of the P7E had a nasty habit of flaming out if it struggled too hard. He began to nurse it up and round, gunning the engine as hard as he dared. Two planes rushed by, so fast he didn’t have time to determine their type, then another three went perpendicular across his bow. They were all Firebirds. One was venting blue smoke in a long, chuffing plume.
"Nock Leader! Nock Leader!" Òmah called.
Two of the Firebirds were already climbing away out of visual. The sun blinded him. The third, the wounded bird, was diving slowly, scribing the sky with its smoke.
He saw the bat clearly then.
At his two, five hundred metres, dropping in on the Firebird it had most likely already mauled. For the first time in his four weeks of operational flying, Òmah got a good look at the elusive foe. It resembled his plane, superficially, the cockpit set far back above the drive at the point where the bow of the blade-wings met. A jet interceptor, the cream of the enemy air force. In the dispersal room briefs, they’d talked about these killers being dirt brown or green, but this was pearl-white, like ice, like alabaster. The canopy was tinted black, like a dark eye-socket in a polished skull.
Òmah had expected to feel fear, but he got a thrill of adrenaline instead. He leaned forward, hunched down in the Firebird’s armoured cockpit, and opened the throttle, sweeping in on the bat’s five. It didn’t appear to have seen him. It was lining up, leisurely, on the wounded plane.
He flipped the toggle switch. Guns live.
Closing at three hundred metres. Òmah rapidly calculated his angle of deflection, estimated he’d have to lead his shot by about five degrees. Reverent eye, he had it…
He thumbed the firing stud. The Firebird shuddered slightly as the cannons lit up. He saw flashflames licking up from under the curve of the nose cone. He heard and felt the thump of the breechblocks.
The bat had gone.
He came clear, pulling a wide turn at about two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. The engagement had been over in an instant. Had he killed it? He sat up into the clear blister of the canopy like an animal looking out of its burrow, craning around. If he’d hit it, surely there would be smoke? The only smoke he could see was about a thousand metres above in the pale blue sky where the main portion of the dogfight was still rolling.
He turned. First rule of air combat: take a shot and pull off. Never stick with a target, never go back. That made you a target. But still he had to know. He had to.
He dipped his starboard wing, searching below for a trace of fire.  Nothing.
Òmah levelled off.
And there it was. Right alongside him.
He cried out in astonishment. The bat was less than a wing’s breadth away, riding along in parallel with him. There was not a mark on its burnished white fuselage.  It was playing with him.
Panic rose inside pilot cadet Zhep det Òmah. He knew his valiant little Firebird could neither outrun nor out-climb the enemy's craft. He throttled back hard, and threw on his speed brakes, hoping the sudden manoeuvre would cause the big machine to overshoot him.
For a moment, it vanished. Then it was back, on his other side, copying his brake-dive. Òmah swore.. He was so close to it that he could see the jet nozzles on the belly under the blade-wings. It could out-dance any prop craft, climbing, braking, even slowing to a near-stall.
Òmah refused to accept he was out-classed, refused to admit he was about to die. He twisted the stick, kicked the rudder right over and went into the deepest dive he dared execute. Any deeper, and the Firebird's wings would shear off its airframe. The world rushed up, filling his vision. He heard the air screaming. He saw the glory of the land ascending to meet him. His land. His home. The home he had joined up to save. Behind him, the pearl-white enemy machine tucked in effortlessly and followed him down. 

Over the Gulf, 06:35
In the side rush of dawn, the distant peaks glowed pink, like some travesty of a fondant cake. Hard shadows infilled the cavities like ink. Streamers of white cloud strung out in the freezing air, 2000 metres below.
Nock Leader was just a cruciform speck in the bright air ahead. He started to turn, ten degrees to the north-west. Òmah tilted the stick, following, rolling. The horizon swung up and the world moved around. Slowly, slowly. He heard the knocking sound and ignored it. At least the inclinometer was still working. As he came around and levelled the column, Òmah reached forward and flicked the brass dial of the fuel gauge again. It still read full, which couldn’t be right. They’d been up for forty-eight minutes. He took off a gauntlet and flicked the gauge once more with his bare fingers. He felt sure the lined mitten had been dulling his blows.
The dial remained at full.
He saw how pinched and blue his hand had become, and pulled the gauntlet back on quickly. It felt balmy in his insulated flightsuit, but the cabin temp read minus eight. There was no sound, except for the background roar of the engine. Òmah looked up and around, remembering to maintain his visual scanning. Just sky. Sundogs flaring in his visor. Nock Three just abeam of him, a silhouette, trailing vapour. The altimeter read 2800 metres.
The radio gurgled. “Nock Leader to Nock Flight. One pass West and we turn for home. Keep formation tight."  They made another lazy roll. The landscape rose up in his port vision. Òmah saw brittle flashes of light far below. Artillery fire on the islands.
He heard the knocking again. It sounded as if someone was crouching behind the frame of his armoured seat, tapping the spars with a hammer. These engines always made a burbling, flatulent noise, but this didn’t seem right to him.
He keyed his radio. "Nock Leader, this is Nock Four. I’ve–" There was a sudden, loud bang. The channel squealed like a stabbed pig.
The world turned upside down.
"Oh throne! Oh crap! Oh shit!” a voice was shouting. Òmah realised it was his own.
G-force pummelled him. His P7E Firebird was tumbling hard. Light and dark, sky and land, up and over, up and over. Òmah choked back nausea and throttled down desperately. The radio was incoherent with frantic chatter.
"Nock Four! Nock Four!"
Òmah regained control and levelled. He had lost at least a thousand metres. He got the horizon true and looked around in the vain hope of seeing someone friendly. Then he cried out involuntarily as something fell past his nosecone.
It was another Firebird, one wing shorn off in a cascade of torn struts and body plate. Flames were sucking back out of its air intakes. It arced down and away like a comet, trailing smoke as it went spinning towards the ground. It became a speck. A smaller speck. A little blink of light. Òmah felt his guts tighten and acid frothed inside him. Fear, like a stink, permeated the little cockpit. Something else flashed past him.
Just a glimpse, moving so fast. There and gone. A memory of black wings.
"Nock Four! Break! Break and turn! There’s one right on you!"
Òmah leaned on the stick and kicked the rudder. The world rolled again. He put his nose up and throttled hard. The Firebird bucked angrily and the knocking came again. Throne of Stars. He’d thought his bird had malfunctioned, but it wasn’t that at all. They’d been stung. He leant forward against the harness and peered out of his cockpit dome. The aluminum skin of his right wing was holed and torn. Night’s teeth, he’d been shot.
He pushed the stick forward to grab some speed, then turned out left in a hard climb.
The dawn sky was full of smoke: long strings of grey vapour and little black blooms that looked like dirty cotton. Nock Flight’s formation had broken apart and they were scattering across the heavens.
Òmah couldn’t even see the bats.
No, that wasn’t true. He made one, bending in to chase Nock Five, tracer fire licking from its guns.  He rolled towards it, flipping the scope of his reflector sight into position before resting his thumb on the stick-top stud that activated the quad cannons in the nose.
The bat danced wildly across the glass reticule of the gunsight. It refused to sit. Òmah cursed and began to utter a prayer to the sun to lift his wings and make his aim true. He waggled the stick, pitching, rolling, trying to correct, but the more he tried, the more the bat slipped wildly off the gunsight to one side or the other.
There was a little smoky flash ahead, and suddenly Òmah's Firebird was riding through a horizontal pelt of black rain.
No. Not rain. Oil. Then debris. Pieces of glittering metal, buckled machine parts, shreds of aluminum. Òmah cried out in surprise as the oil washed out his forward view. He heard the pattering impact of the debris striking off his nose plate and wing faces. The bat had chalked Nock Five and Òmah was running in through the debris stream. Any large piece of wreckage would hole him and kill him as surely as cannon-fire. And if so much as a screw went down the intake of his engine…
Òmah wrenched on the stick and came nose-up. Light returned as he came out of the smoke belt, and slipstream flowed the oil away off his canopy. It ran in quivering lines, slow and sticky, like blood.
Almost immediately, he had to roll hard to port to avoid hitting another Firebird head on. He heard a strangled cry over the radio. The little dark interceptor filled his field of view for a second and then was gone back over his shoulder.
His violent roll had been too brutal. He inverted for a moment and struggled to right himself as the hills spread out overhead. That knocking again. That damn knocking. He was bleeding speed now, and the experimental engines of the P7E had a nasty habit of flaming out if it struggled too hard. He began to nurse it up and round, gunning the engine as hard as he dared. Two planes rushed by, so fast he didn’t have time to determine their type, then another three went perpendicular across his bow. They were all Firebirds. One was venting blue smoke in a long, chuffing plume.
"Nock Leader! Nock Leader!" Òmah called.
Two of the Firebirds were already climbing away out of visual. The sun blinded him. The third, the wounded bird, was diving slowly, scribing the sky with its smoke.
He saw the bat clearly then.
At his two, five hundred metres, dropping in on the Firebird it had most likely already mauled. For the first time in his four weeks of operational flying, Òmah got a good look at the elusive foe. It resembled his plane, superficially, the cockpit set far back above the drive at the point where the bow of the blade-wings met. A jet interceptor, the cream of the enemy air force. In the dispersal room briefs, they’d talked about these killers being dirt brown or green, but this was pearl-white, like ice, like alabaster. The canopy was tinted black, like a dark eye-socket in a polished skull.
Òmah had expected to feel fear, but he got a thrill of adrenaline instead. He leaned forward, hunched down in the Firebird’s armoured cockpit, and opened the throttle, sweeping in on the bat’s five. It didn’t appear to have seen him. It was lining up, leisurely, on the wounded plane.
He flipped the toggle switch. Guns live.
Closing at three hundred metres. Òmah rapidly calculated his angle of deflection, estimated he’d have to lead his shot by about five degrees. Reverent eye, he had it…
He thumbed the firing stud. The Firebird shuddered slightly as the cannons lit up. He saw flashflames licking up from under the curve of the nose cone. He heard and felt the thump of the breechblocks.
The bat had gone.
He came clear, pulling a wide turn at about two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. The engagement had been over in an instant. Had he killed it? He sat up into the clear blister of the canopy like an animal looking out of its burrow, craning around. If he’d hit it, surely there would be smoke? The only smoke he could see was about a thousand metres above in the pale blue sky where the main portion of the dogfight was still rolling.
He turned. First rule of air combat: take a shot and pull off. Never stick with a target, never go back. That made you a target. But still he had to know. He had to.
He dipped his starboard wing, searching below for a trace of fire.  Nothing.
Òmah levelled off.
And there it was. Right alongside him.
He cried out in astonishment. The bat was less than a wing’s breadth away, riding along in parallel with him. There was not a mark on its burnished white fuselage.  It was playing with him.
Panic rose inside pilot cadet Zhep det Òmah. He knew his valiant little Firebird could neither outrun nor out-climb the enemy's craft. He throttled back hard, and threw on his speed brakes, hoping the sudden manoeuvre would cause the big machine to overshoot him.
For a moment, it vanished. Then it was back, on his other side, copying his brake-dive. Òmah swore.. He was so close to it that he could see the jet nozzles on the belly under the blade-wings. It could out-dance any prop craft, climbing, braking, even slowing to a near-stall.
Òmah refused to accept he was out-classed, refused to admit he was about to die. He twisted the stick, kicked the rudder right over and went into the deepest dive he dared execute. Any deeper, and the Firebird's wings would shear off its airframe. The world rushed up, filling his vision. He heard the air screaming. He saw the glory of the land ascending to meet him. His land. His home. The home he had joined up to save. Behind him, the pearl-white enemy machine tucked in effortlessly and followed him down. 

Continuation of my previous post.
Zou Liqin, Jiang Yunru & Zhong Dongmei are students at Anzhou Medical University. They share a flat in the Mengyao Residential District, 20 minutes away from their university by subway. Zou, Jiang and Dongmei just finished watching the game against Cambria.
Dongmei: "That was..."
Yunru: "Bori-"
Liqin: "THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!"
Yunru: "Yeah... that's definitely what I was going to say."
Liqin: "YUNRU, YOU DONT UNDERSTAND! Cambria haven't lost a single game yet! We were the only ones to kick their a-"
Dongmei: "Yeah... It was pretty cool... I didn't realise how much people take it seriously..."
Yunru: "People take it too seriously if you ask me..."
Liqin: "It's just a bit of fun! Plus, you should be proud of your country for winning!"
Yunru: "It's... a little hard to be excited about the football after what's happening in Fuzhou..."
The room goes quiet.
Liqin: "Have you... heard from your sister?"
Yunru: "Yeah... she's okay, though my family's pottery workshop has been pretty much destroyed"
Dongmei: "Oh... I'm sorry..."
The room goes quiet again.
Yunru: "Anyway... I didn't mean to kill the mood... I suppose on the bright side, the Navy are allowing my father to come home early to be with the rest of my family back home."
Dongmei: "He was involved in the conflict with Fauthur, right?"
[Context: Earlier in the year, a Sekiyan naval force sent to calm tensions was attacked off the coast of Aftokratoria]
Liqin: "I don't know if I'd call it a conflict. But-"
Yunru: "Yeah, he was. It was pretty scary when I saw the news.."
Dongmei: "Wow, that's a lot to go through in a year, I'm glad everyone's okay"
Yunru: "Yeah, I suppose... Anyway, we should probably clear up our mess."
Liqin: "Wanna continue cellars and fellas later?"
Dongmei: "Absolutely!"
Yunru: Happier "You... mean it?"
Liqin: "Yeah, why not!"


Two of the popular adverts to release for the Sekiyan Maritime Force (Yǒngguó Hǎishì Lìliàng) following its engagement with Fauthur.
 

National Stadium,10.30 PM
GOALLL,Arifiyyah National Stadium echoed with shouts of goals after Muhammad Nazhim scored the goal 2nd goal against Pedandria. "First of all, I would like to thank the main organizer of the live broadcast of the world cup premiere, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture. Thank you also to all the attendees who livened up the atmosphere. Alhamdulillah, thank God for the victory of all the group stage matches. I would like to announce my intention to bring everyone in attendance tonight to witness the knockout match at Ryxtylopia." Sultan Arif said. The next day,the Chairman of State before His Majesty the Sultan at the Arifiyyah Grand Palace. 
10.00 am, Arifiyyah Grand Palace 
Tan Sri Rais, Chairman of States who has been in office for almost two terms, sat on the sofa facing the Sultan, "Why did Your Majesty call me here?" Sultan Arif replied casually,"I want to take you to Ryxtylopia once. You and Dato Isma." Tan Sri Rais replied, "Thank you for your offer, but won't I be assigned to take care of the country if you go abroad?" The Sultan replied, "You must not read the Constitution to the end (with a laughing tone). Just follow us, MPM will be guided by the Keeper of the King's Seal to protect the country. After all, we may have the opportunity to hold a meeting with the leaders of Aura to discuss the Trans-Auran high speed railway prpject which is delayed. They must be interested." He continued, "After all, you are a person who always works hard. You need to rest. When I asked you to get married, you said there was no candidate. I also don't want to mess with your personal affairs.
After about two hours of traveling by air, Sultan Arif carried his son, Ali Nazhim and moved to the hotel with more than 100 entourage members.
 
HIS MAJESTY SULTAN ARIF NAZHIM SHAH CARRYING HRH TENGKU MAHKOTA RAJA TENGKU ALI NAZHIM, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS ROYAL ASSISTANT,THE CHAIRMAN OF STATES AND 100 ARIFIANS AT THE RYXTYLOPIA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT 

Over the Gulf, 06:35
In the side rush of dawn, the distant peaks glowed pink, like some travesty of a fondant cake. Hard shadows infilled the cavities like ink. Streamers of white cloud strung out in the freezing air, 2000 metres below.
Nock Leader was just a cruciform speck in the bright air ahead. He started to turn, ten degrees to the north-west. Òmah tilted the stick, following, rolling. The horizon swung up and the world moved around. Slowly, slowly. He heard the knocking sound and ignored it. At least the inclinometer was still working. As he came around and levelled the column, Òmah reached forward and flicked the brass dial of the fuel gauge again. It still read full, which couldn’t be right. They’d been up for forty-eight minutes. He took off a gauntlet and flicked the gauge once more with his bare fingers. He felt sure the lined mitten had been dulling his blows.
The dial remained at full.
He saw how pinched and blue his hand had become, and pulled the gauntlet back on quickly. It felt balmy in his insulated flightsuit, but the cabin temp read minus eight. There was no sound, except for the background roar of the engine. Òmah looked up and around, remembering to maintain his visual scanning. Just sky. Sundogs flaring in his visor. Nock Three just abeam of him, a silhouette, trailing vapour. The altimeter read 2800 metres.
The radio gurgled. “Nock Leader to Nock Flight. One pass West and we turn for home. Keep formation tight."  They made another lazy roll. The landscape rose up in his port vision. Òmah saw brittle flashes of light far below. Artillery fire on the islands.
He heard the knocking again. It sounded as if someone was crouching behind the frame of his armoured seat, tapping the spars with a hammer. These engines always made a burbling, flatulent noise, but this didn’t seem right to him.
He keyed his radio. "Nock Leader, this is Nock Four. I’ve–" There was a sudden, loud bang. The channel squealed like a stabbed pig.
The world turned upside down.
"Oh throne! Oh crap! Oh shit!” a voice was shouting. Òmah realised it was his own.
G-force pummelled him. His P7E Firebird was tumbling hard. Light and dark, sky and land, up and over, up and over. Òmah choked back nausea and throttled down desperately. The radio was incoherent with frantic chatter.
"Nock Four! Nock Four!"
Òmah regained control and levelled. He had lost at least a thousand metres. He got the horizon true and looked around in the vain hope of seeing someone friendly. Then he cried out involuntarily as something fell past his nosecone.
It was another Firebird, one wing shorn off in a cascade of torn struts and body plate. Flames were sucking back out of its air intakes. It arced down and away like a comet, trailing smoke as it went spinning towards the ground. It became a speck. A smaller speck. A little blink of light. Òmah felt his guts tighten and acid frothed inside him. Fear, like a stink, permeated the little cockpit. Something else flashed past him.
Just a glimpse, moving so fast. There and gone. A memory of black wings.
"Nock Four! Break! Break and turn! There’s one right on you!"
Òmah leaned on the stick and kicked the rudder. The world rolled again. He put his nose up and throttled hard. The Firebird bucked angrily and the knocking came again. Throne of Stars. He’d thought his bird had malfunctioned, but it wasn’t that at all. They’d been stung. He leant forward against the harness and peered out of his cockpit dome. The aluminum skin of his right wing was holed and torn. Night’s teeth, he’d been shot.
He pushed the stick forward to grab some speed, then turned out left in a hard climb.
The dawn sky was full of smoke: long strings of grey vapour and little black blooms that looked like dirty cotton. Nock Flight’s formation had broken apart and they were scattering across the heavens.
Òmah couldn’t even see the bats.
No, that wasn’t true. He made one, bending in to chase Nock Five, tracer fire licking from its guns.  He rolled towards it, flipping the scope of his reflector sight into position before resting his thumb on the stick-top stud that activated the quad cannons in the nose.
The bat danced wildly across the glass reticule of the gunsight. It refused to sit. Òmah cursed and began to utter a prayer to the sun to lift his wings and make his aim true. He waggled the stick, pitching, rolling, trying to correct, but the more he tried, the more the bat slipped wildly off the gunsight to one side or the other.
There was a little smoky flash ahead, and suddenly Òmah's Firebird was riding through a horizontal pelt of black rain.
No. Not rain. Oil. Then debris. Pieces of glittering metal, buckled machine parts, shreds of aluminum. Òmah cried out in surprise as the oil washed out his forward view. He heard the pattering impact of the debris striking off his nose plate and wing faces. The bat had chalked Nock Five and Òmah was running in through the debris stream. Any large piece of wreckage would hole him and kill him as surely as cannon-fire. And if so much as a screw went down the intake of his engine…
Òmah wrenched on the stick and came nose-up. Light returned as he came out of the smoke belt, and slipstream flowed the oil away off his canopy. It ran in quivering lines, slow and sticky, like blood.
Almost immediately, he had to roll hard to port to avoid hitting another Firebird head on. He heard a strangled cry over the radio. The little dark interceptor filled his field of view for a second and then was gone back over his shoulder.
His violent roll had been too brutal. He inverted for a moment and struggled to right himself as the hills spread out overhead. That knocking again. That damn knocking. He was bleeding speed now, and the experimental engines of the P7E had a nasty habit of flaming out if it struggled too hard. He began to nurse it up and round, gunning the engine as hard as he dared. Two planes rushed by, so fast he didn’t have time to determine their type, then another three went perpendicular across his bow. They were all Firebirds. One was venting blue smoke in a long, chuffing plume.
"Nock Leader! Nock Leader!" Òmah called.
Two of the Firebirds were already climbing away out of visual. The sun blinded him. The third, the wounded bird, was diving slowly, scribing the sky with its smoke.
He saw the bat clearly then.
At his two, five hundred metres, dropping in on the Firebird it had most likely already mauled. For the first time in his four weeks of operational flying, Òmah got a good look at the elusive foe. It resembled his plane, superficially, the cockpit set far back above the drive at the point where the bow of the blade-wings met. A jet interceptor, the cream of the enemy air force. In the dispersal room briefs, they’d talked about these killers being dirt brown or green, but this was pearl-white, like ice, like alabaster. The canopy was tinted black, like a dark eye-socket in a polished skull.
Òmah had expected to feel fear, but he got a thrill of adrenaline instead. He leaned forward, hunched down in the Firebird’s armoured cockpit, and opened the throttle, sweeping in on the bat’s five. It didn’t appear to have seen him. It was lining up, leisurely, on the wounded plane.
He flipped the toggle switch. Guns live.
Closing at three hundred metres. Òmah rapidly calculated his angle of deflection, estimated he’d have to lead his shot by about five degrees. Reverent eye, he had it…
He thumbed the firing stud. The Firebird shuddered slightly as the cannons lit up. He saw flashflames licking up from under the curve of the nose cone. He heard and felt the thump of the breechblocks.
The bat had gone.
He came clear, pulling a wide turn at about two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. The engagement had been over in an instant. Had he killed it? He sat up into the clear blister of the canopy like an animal looking out of its burrow, craning around. If he’d hit it, surely there would be smoke? The only smoke he could see was about a thousand metres above in the pale blue sky where the main portion of the dogfight was still rolling.
He turned. First rule of air combat: take a shot and pull off. Never stick with a target, never go back. That made you a target. But still he had to know. He had to.
He dipped his starboard wing, searching below for a trace of fire.  Nothing.
Òmah levelled off.
And there it was. Right alongside him.
He cried out in astonishment. The bat was less than a wing’s breadth away, riding along in parallel with him. There was not a mark on its burnished white fuselage.  It was playing with him.
Panic rose inside pilot cadet Zhep det Òmah. He knew his valiant little Firebird could neither outrun nor out-climb the enemy's craft. He throttled back hard, and threw on his speed brakes, hoping the sudden manoeuvre would cause the big machine to overshoot him.
For a moment, it vanished. Then it was back, on his other side, copying his brake-dive. Òmah swore.. He was so close to it that he could see the jet nozzles on the belly under the blade-wings. It could out-dance any prop craft, climbing, braking, even slowing to a near-stall.
Òmah refused to accept he was out-classed, refused to admit he was about to die. He twisted the stick, kicked the rudder right over and went into the deepest dive he dared execute. Any deeper, and the Firebird's wings would shear off its airframe. The world rushed up, filling his vision. He heard the air screaming. He saw the glory of the land ascending to meet him. His land. His home. The home he had joined up to save. Behind him, the pearl-white enemy machine tucked in effortlessly and followed him down. 

Over the Gulf, 06:35
In the side rush of dawn, the distant peaks glowed pink, like some travesty of a fondant cake. Hard shadows infilled the cavities like ink. Streamers of white cloud strung out in the freezing air, 2000 metres below.
Nock Leader was just a cruciform speck in the bright air ahead. He started to turn, ten degrees to the north-west. Òmah tilted the stick, following, rolling. The horizon swung up and the world moved around. Slowly, slowly. He heard the knocking sound and ignored it. At least the inclinometer was still working. As he came around and levelled the column, Òmah reached forward and flicked the brass dial of the fuel gauge again. It still read full, which couldn’t be right. They’d been up for forty-eight minutes. He took off a gauntlet and flicked the gauge once more with his bare fingers. He felt sure the lined mitten had been dulling his blows.
The dial remained at full.
He saw how pinched and blue his hand had become, and pulled the gauntlet back on quickly. It felt balmy in his insulated flightsuit, but the cabin temp read minus eight. There was no sound, except for the background roar of the engine. Òmah looked up and around, remembering to maintain his visual scanning. Just sky. Sundogs flaring in his visor. Nock Three just abeam of him, a silhouette, trailing vapour. The altimeter read 2800 metres.
The radio gurgled. “Nock Leader to Nock Flight. One pass West and we turn for home. Keep formation tight."  They made another lazy roll. The landscape rose up in his port vision. Òmah saw brittle flashes of light far below. Artillery fire on the islands.
He heard the knocking again. It sounded as if someone was crouching behind the frame of his armoured seat, tapping the spars with a hammer. These engines always made a burbling, flatulent noise, but this didn’t seem right to him.
He keyed his radio. "Nock Leader, this is Nock Four. I’ve–" There was a sudden, loud bang. The channel squealed like a stabbed pig.
The world turned upside down.
"Oh throne! Oh crap! Oh shit!” a voice was shouting. Òmah realised it was his own.
G-force pummelled him. His P7E Firebird was tumbling hard. Light and dark, sky and land, up and over, up and over. Òmah choked back nausea and throttled down desperately. The radio was incoherent with frantic chatter.
"Nock Four! Nock Four!"
Òmah regained control and levelled. He had lost at least a thousand metres. He got the horizon true and looked around in the vain hope of seeing someone friendly. Then he cried out involuntarily as something fell past his nosecone.
It was another Firebird, one wing shorn off in a cascade of torn struts and body plate. Flames were sucking back out of its air intakes. It arced down and away like a comet, trailing smoke as it went spinning towards the ground. It became a speck. A smaller speck. A little blink of light. Òmah felt his guts tighten and acid frothed inside him. Fear, like a stink, permeated the little cockpit. Something else flashed past him.
Just a glimpse, moving so fast. There and gone. A memory of black wings.
"Nock Four! Break! Break and turn! There’s one right on you!"
Òmah leaned on the stick and kicked the rudder. The world rolled again. He put his nose up and throttled hard. The Firebird bucked angrily and the knocking came again. Throne of Stars. He’d thought his bird had malfunctioned, but it wasn’t that at all. They’d been stung. He leant forward against the harness and peered out of his cockpit dome. The aluminum skin of his right wing was holed and torn. Night’s teeth, he’d been shot.
He pushed the stick forward to grab some speed, then turned out left in a hard climb.
The dawn sky was full of smoke: long strings of grey vapour and little black blooms that looked like dirty cotton. Nock Flight’s formation had broken apart and they were scattering across the heavens.
Òmah couldn’t even see the bats.
No, that wasn’t true. He made one, bending in to chase Nock Five, tracer fire licking from its guns.  He rolled towards it, flipping the scope of his reflector sight into position before resting his thumb on the stick-top stud that activated the quad cannons in the nose.
The bat danced wildly across the glass reticule of the gunsight. It refused to sit. Òmah cursed and began to utter a prayer to the sun to lift his wings and make his aim true. He waggled the stick, pitching, rolling, trying to correct, but the more he tried, the more the bat slipped wildly off the gunsight to one side or the other.
There was a little smoky flash ahead, and suddenly Òmah's Firebird was riding through a horizontal pelt of black rain.
No. Not rain. Oil. Then debris. Pieces of glittering metal, buckled machine parts, shreds of aluminum. Òmah cried out in surprise as the oil washed out his forward view. He heard the pattering impact of the debris striking off his nose plate and wing faces. The bat had chalked Nock Five and Òmah was running in through the debris stream. Any large piece of wreckage would hole him and kill him as surely as cannon-fire. And if so much as a screw went down the intake of his engine…
Òmah wrenched on the stick and came nose-up. Light returned as he came out of the smoke belt, and slipstream flowed the oil away off his canopy. It ran in quivering lines, slow and sticky, like blood.
Almost immediately, he had to roll hard to port to avoid hitting another Firebird head on. He heard a strangled cry over the radio. The little dark interceptor filled his field of view for a second and then was gone back over his shoulder.
His violent roll had been too brutal. He inverted for a moment and struggled to right himself as the hills spread out overhead. That knocking again. That damn knocking. He was bleeding speed now, and the experimental engines of the P7E had a nasty habit of flaming out if it struggled too hard. He began to nurse it up and round, gunning the engine as hard as he dared. Two planes rushed by, so fast he didn’t have time to determine their type, then another three went perpendicular across his bow. They were all Firebirds. One was venting blue smoke in a long, chuffing plume.
"Nock Leader! Nock Leader!" Òmah called.
Two of the Firebirds were already climbing away out of visual. The sun blinded him. The third, the wounded bird, was diving slowly, scribing the sky with its smoke.
He saw the bat clearly then.
At his two, five hundred metres, dropping in on the Firebird it had most likely already mauled. For the first time in his four weeks of operational flying, Òmah got a good look at the elusive foe. It resembled his plane, superficially, the cockpit set far back above the drive at the point where the bow of the blade-wings met. A jet interceptor, the cream of the enemy air force. In the dispersal room briefs, they’d talked about these killers being dirt brown or green, but this was pearl-white, like ice, like alabaster. The canopy was tinted black, like a dark eye-socket in a polished skull.
Òmah had expected to feel fear, but he got a thrill of adrenaline instead. He leaned forward, hunched down in the Firebird’s armoured cockpit, and opened the throttle, sweeping in on the bat’s five. It didn’t appear to have seen him. It was lining up, leisurely, on the wounded plane.
He flipped the toggle switch. Guns live.
Closing at three hundred metres. Òmah rapidly calculated his angle of deflection, estimated he’d have to lead his shot by about five degrees. Reverent eye, he had it…
He thumbed the firing stud. The Firebird shuddered slightly as the cannons lit up. He saw flashflames licking up from under the curve of the nose cone. He heard and felt the thump of the breechblocks.
The bat had gone.
He came clear, pulling a wide turn at about two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. The engagement had been over in an instant. Had he killed it? He sat up into the clear blister of the canopy like an animal looking out of its burrow, craning around. If he’d hit it, surely there would be smoke? The only smoke he could see was about a thousand metres above in the pale blue sky where the main portion of the dogfight was still rolling.
He turned. First rule of air combat: take a shot and pull off. Never stick with a target, never go back. That made you a target. But still he had to know. He had to.
He dipped his starboard wing, searching below for a trace of fire.  Nothing.
Òmah levelled off.
And there it was. Right alongside him.
He cried out in astonishment. The bat was less than a wing’s breadth away, riding along in parallel with him. There was not a mark on its burnished white fuselage.  It was playing with him.
Panic rose inside pilot cadet Zhep det Òmah. He knew his valiant little Firebird could neither outrun nor out-climb the enemy's craft. He throttled back hard, and threw on his speed brakes, hoping the sudden manoeuvre would cause the big machine to overshoot him.
For a moment, it vanished. Then it was back, on his other side, copying his brake-dive. Òmah swore.. He was so close to it that he could see the jet nozzles on the belly under the blade-wings. It could out-dance any prop craft, climbing, braking, even slowing to a near-stall.
Òmah refused to accept he was out-classed, refused to admit he was about to die. He twisted the stick, kicked the rudder right over and went into the deepest dive he dared execute. Any deeper, and the Firebird's wings would shear off its airframe. The world rushed up, filling his vision. He heard the air screaming. He saw the glory of the land ascending to meet him. His land. His home. The home he had joined up to save. Behind him, the pearl-white enemy machine tucked in effortlessly and followed him down.