"Commande, we have contact with supporting GA ships just appeared form warp, what do you need us to do?"

Commander Vir Spun in his spot eyes flying across the open field of battle. Burg ships were slowly descending from the right headed straight towards the Gromm homeworld, and with the Nexus down, they were sure to cause devastation. He could already see swarms of aircraft dropping form the bellies of their great spiked ships and down towards the surface of the planet.

"We have to get fighter's down there immediately." he determined, "The Gromm are out there like sitting ducks, and after their planet was hit by the disease not more than a year ago, they can't take another hit like this to their population."

"Commander, we have GA on the comms saying they have shields for us, ready to install."

The commander was quiet for a moment staring out towards the unfolding chaos, a chaos that should have been noisy, but was now taking place in absolute silence.

He spun again now to face the lieutenant, "Lieutenant! Can you fly this ship?"

The woman stammered and then after a moment nodded, "yes commander, why."

He ignored the question, "Than take the chair."

"But, Commander."

"I said take the chair, that was not a question it was an order. Make contact with the GA scientists and get those shields up as soon as humanly possible, sooner than humanly possible if we can manage it. Order all reserve pilots down planetside immediately, but reserve me a darkfire and tell the crew I will be down in ten." The lieutenant stifled her protests, and took the chairt. The commander jabbed a finger at the recruits, "McCaster, you're with me."

The recruit looked around in confused disbelief, but was pushed from his seat in confusion.

The commander marched past the control modules, and a hand reached out catching him by the arm. He paused in place looking down at the blue Drev and her piercing golden eyes locking green to gold. There was silence for a quick moment before, "Don't die." She said simply

A rare smile for that day, "I wouldn't dream of it."

She let him go unwilling to hold him up any longer, and with that, the two of them raced from the bridge and down towards the docking bay.

Recruit McCaster was huffing and puffing by the time they reached their destination not entirely sure how the Commander managed to do the same running in heelies.

As they ran in, a crew was waiting for them by the only F-90 darkfire still left on the ship, and with them they carried all the flight gear them might need.

Commander Vir kicked off his shoes without even bothering to untie them.

"You're copiloting with me." The man began, Stropping off his shirt and throwing that after the shoes as well."

McCaster followed suit scrambling to get into the flight uniform right there on the launch deck, with the help of at least five other people.

Commander Vir wriggled into the olive drab flight suit pulling the helmet on with the oxygen mask hanging open.

He could hardly believe what was happening, "But sir."

"Shut up and listen, recruit. The Gromm don't have the population for this right now. Someone needs to get down there and they need to slow down any and all bombing attempts on populated areas. I can't get the ship in that close without landing her, which is the last thing I want to do. I know my lieutenant can pilot the ship now that we have shields, but there is only one person I trust to dogfight, and that's me. So can you copilot with me, or do I have to go solo."

"No, sir." McCaster stammered, pulling on his helmet.

"Good."

Commander Vir slipped on his shoes last, and together they ran up to the opening cockpit climbing up the ladder and sliding into the seats, Commander Vir in front and McCaster in back trusting that the crew had already looked over the outside of the craft to make sure it was functioning.

McCaster couldn't believe he was here, with the Commander inside one of the UNSCs most expensive fighter jets. He may as well have won the lottery. The man was a flight school legend, and anyone who could do what he did with a ship like that..... Well he could only imagine what he could do with a jet.

He felt the engines turn on below him slowly accelerating. He knew they would be the jet engines over the fusion engine, since it would be too powerful to start on the ship.

"Harbinger, this is Alpha 1 clear for takeoff."

"Copy that Alpha one rotating to airlock, hold steady."

He felt the floor below them begin to move, and his breath came in ragged gasps inside his mask even as cool oxygen flowed over his face. Up ahead the Commander was readying the jet for takeoff, hands flying over the controls. He could hear it, even though he couldn't really see it.

Red lights flashed outside the cockpit as the airlock doors closed.

And all at once, they were plunged into complete and utter silence all except for his own breathing, and the occasional voice of the commander as he contacted Harbinger flight control.

"Don't piss yourself recruit. I am going to be flying this bucket of bolts in combat condition, so it's your job to monitor lock, enemy targets, and communicate with flight control from here on out. It's my job to fly and shoot. You got that?"

"Yes sir, loud and clear, sir."

"Good, Now hold on to your helmet."

The commander was not kidding, and he almost lost track of himself as the jet rocketed form the opening and into the vastness of space. He groaned in pain as the weight on his chest pressed down for the first few moments, coming out of it just as the commander engaged the fusion core.

He almost blacked out for a second time as the man pushed acceleration to the edges of human capabilities without blowing their eyes from their sockets.

The man barely seemed to notice the space debris that floated around them zipping easily in between charred pieces of metal floating through space. An one of those pieces could have been the death of them, but the commander didn't seem to notice or care.

He quickly took the moment to remember his job, jumping on the flight tracker trying to find where the Burg drones congregated most heavily. Not to his surprise they found it over the most populated city in the planet.

Jets were already whizzing through each other causing explosions to erupt in the atmosphere like little sparks cast from a fire.

"Adjust course 20 degrees and five down, commander."

"Copy." The jets engines pulsed once, changing their course and sending them hurtling across the intervening space.

"Commander, Commander, suggest angled entry." McCaster said nervously

"No McCaster, we're going to try something a little bit different."

He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that as the planet grew up in their vision. Behind them the harbinger pulsed with a strange purple blue glow distinctly alien in nature, though now she wasn't much more than a speck rising to meet a line of burg ship who had appeared form warp not moment before to face off against the incoming GA fleet.

The planet was a blue brown orb in their vision now.

The commander bypassed LEO and headed straight downwards.

McCaster felt his stomach drop as little tongues of flame began licking up at the edges of their wings as friction in the atmosphere began roaring up around them.

"Commander." he began nervously.

The commander didn't hear him, and the fire grew up around them even further.

"Commander."

The jet was shaking fit to erupt into a million tiny pieces. It seemed as if they were about to explode. Then and only then did the commander reverse the engines and slow their fall. Though the weight of gravity now tugged him against his harness suspending him straight perpendicular to the ground.

He watched the distant earth rising up to meet them.

Little red explosions were growing larger and larger in his vision.

And then the commander Cut the fusion engines.

The whirring thrum of the equipment keeping them in the sky cut to a stop, and he couldn't help but scream as they began to freefall wildly towards the ground. Or at least that is what it looked like. If he had been thinking he would have realised if they were in a wild freefall they would be going down heavy end first, though their nose remained towards the ground as the Commander adjusted the wings minutely to keep them on track as they gained momentum speeding through the atmosphere.

The burg targeting systems were locked primarily to the output of energy, and since their engines were off there would be no energy output other than that of engine falloff which was nothing compared to the other jets roaring around beneath them.

They were coming in for a surprise.

***

A burg drone pilot, safe in his chair back on the burg command ship had locked on to one of the puny human flight vessels. It was shaped like an arrow, a pointy nose at the front and two wings towards the back. They were fast, but he had been pleased to learn that they were manned. If he could manage this he would surely be rewarded for killing one of those horrible humans.

He locked onto his target despite the best efforts of the human inside. The squishy pumping heart of the jet's metallic interior.

He clicked his pincers in pleasure.

And then his feed was cut.

He screeched in anger, not sure what had happened until warning lights popped up on his screen.

He had been shot down? From where there were no other jets in the area.

***
Lt holland, was out of flares. The burg ship was fast at his heels and the constant beeping inside his cockpit reminded him incessantly of the lock he was trying to get out of. The burg could fire at any moment and there would be nothing he could do. Behind him, his copilot was twisted to look out the back of the canopy.

"He's closing fast."

"I know."

"He's getting ready to fire."

"I know!"

And then the burg ship erupted into an explosion of fiery debris and black metal.

"Holy shit." His copilot watched in awe as the F-90 darkfire came roaring from the sky, firing its engines at the last second and pulling up from a dive that should have been suicidal. It cut right and down falling into formation just above their left wing.

"Unknown pilot, this is Alpha 1."

Lt. Holland laughed in astonished relief, "Cutting it a bit close there commander."

"Don't worry, you can that me later." The man responded,

***

Recruit McCaster had definitely passed out.

Commander Vir had taken them out of that dive at 9gs .

He had managed up until about the ninth g mark, and then his breathing and his flight technique had faltered. He experienced G lock collapsing against his harness head rolling forward until they came out of the dive seconds later.

"Stop sleeping dammit!" The commander yelled, "Pull yourself together."

He did as told still lightly groggy and confused.

The commander pulled a hard right dodging past an incoming burg drone aiming to follow the Kamekazi rout. They took a hard turn, nearly causing him to pass out again as they rounded on the tail of the burg drone.

It didn't take more than a moment for the commander to attain lock and make the shot.

The burg drone erupted into a ball of fire.

They doubled back after that hooking up with a group of pilots and flying in formation towards the epicenter of the attack.

They saw at least one of their own planes explode as it rammed straight into a burg ship. The commander swore violently pulling their jet to the side and down as debris erupted around them. Missiles and bullets flew. Explosions rocked them left and right.

It was all he could do to hold on as the commander piloted the darkfire like brigades of angels were lifting their wings.

Fire erupted below them in the city as the gromm citizens dived for cover.

A larger, slower burg ship was dropping ordinance from above the city, surrounded by a swarm of fighter drones. Every time they tried to get close, they would be chased away, and every moment it grew closer and closer to the central populated area of the city.

The commander set his sites on those targets as McCaster kept in radio contact with the other pilots feeding the commander real time information as it was going.

"We've got a tail!"

"Understood."

Behind them, A burg ship had dropped into follow, but the commander didn't seem to be doing anything about it

"Commander!"

Up ahead two of the burg drones had fallen into formation and were heading straight for them in order to protect their bomber.

"Commander."

The beeping started up inside the cockpit as the burg attained lock. Ahead of them the drones were buzzing forward heading straight for them.

McCaster screamed in surprise and shock.

Behind them the burg ship fired. The two drones plowed directly towards them, and the commander pulled his move rotating them one hundred and eighty degrees parallel to the ground and firing the flairs. McCaster watched in shock and surprise as both of the burg ships cut below their wings, not inches away erupting into balls of fire as the flairs, usually not meant for attacks, exploded around them, only to be torn apart moments later by the burg's own missiles.

The explosion was so violent, it rocked them forward sending them into an over-nose jackknifing spin through the air.

McCaster didn't know which way was down or up.

The earth and the sky spun all around him training the space with each other moment by moment.

He thought they were going to crash, but at the last second, the commander pulled them out of their wild spin, rolled belly up, and fired another round Cutting directly under the burg bomber just in time to send their missile into the open engine block.

The explosion was tremendous practically vaporizing the entire ship and sending little flakes of metal raining down in all directions.

It wasn't ideal but at least it was better than the alternative.

McCaster didn't even know why the commander had bothered to bring him along. The guy was way out of his league, and he could barely remain conscious enough to be useful.

They hadn't been lying in the academy when they said the man could fly.

In fact, they had been downplaying it.

It just remained to be seen whether the commander's flight ability would be enough.

Or would the burg still win.