Banshee Two jinked and snap-rolled, narrowly avoiding a rapid-fire stream of energy blasts. Inside the cockpit, Max Vasser used the marvelous technology of her fighter's in-helmet heads-up-display to confirm what she already knew by instinct. She knew just what she had to do.
Banshee Two snapped its nose up and its breaking thrusters flared angrily, causing it to bleed off speed drastically. The other fighter which had been pursuing and firing the shots flashed past, unable to match Max's radical maneuver.
Max lined up the other fighter, tagged 'Banshee Four' in her HUD, in the center of her holographic crosshairs. Eyes unflinching and jaw set, she squeezed the trigger, and moments later was rewarded with a frustrated holler over the comm circuit.
[Aaaahhhhhhhh! Curse you, Red Baron!] yelled Jo Schmidt, pilot of Banshee Four.
Piloting Banshee One, Lee Carter activated the comlink. "Training laser hit confirmed on Banshee Four. Simulated damage indicates total destruction." After a moment, she said, "Nice shot, Max. Jo -- you get to sit out the rest of this exercise."
Jo mumbled something unintelligible over the comm before clicking off, but Carter could see her Banshee obediently banking and heading away from the arena. There wasn't too much time to waste on idle sightseeing though, because this exercise was just getting started, and Max was on an early roll.
Whenever the Banshees went on these training exercises, the outcome was always the same -- Max and that crazy esper ability of hers would pick off her team mates one by one until she was the only one left "alive". Try as they might, no one could touch her, although Sam Beckett occasionally came real close thanks to her cybernetically-enhanced reflexes. For the others, the best they could usually hope for was not to get knocked out of the running too quickly.
But here she was, wasting precious seconds while Max was probably already lining her up in her sights. Quickly scanning the HUD, she was relieved to discover that Max was busy with Sam at the moment, and hadn't noticed her inattention, and that Banshee Five -- Kim Tycho -- was hovering at the opposite edge of the training area. She switched over to stealth mode and began working her way over to where Sam and Max were dogfighting.
Jo's plaintive cry at being the first to get shot down by the 'Red Baron', as she put it in her irreverent way, momentarily snapped Kim Tycho out of her funk. She checked her HUD and saw that she was safe for the moment from attack, so she let her mind wander off again....
....back to the day Garek had asked her to marry him. She'd said yes, of course, and everything had seemed perfectly hunky-dory. More or less. Somewhere along the line, something had happened that had nipped their pre-nuptial bliss in the proverbial bud. Garek had tried to pretend everything was all right, putting on a brave face, but she could tell something was really bugging him. And she had no idea what it was.
Then, before they could sit down and talk about it, the Hornet had shipped out, and now here she was, millions of miles from the man she loved, in the middle of a silly pretend dogfight. How was she supposed to concentrate with all this on her mind?!?
Kim didn't have time to think about her love-life problems just then though. Bright flashes began erupting all around her cockpit and her whole fighter rattled, rousing her from her languor. She barely apprehended Sam and Max's Banshees zip past her in their still-raging dogfight. Kim yanked her joystick hard and opened up the throttle, suddenly intent on giving chase. Max's Banshee came within range of her guns, and for an unbelievable second, actually stayed centered in her crosshairs.
Kim didn't hesitate. She squeezed her trigger, expecting to see her training lasers connect with Max's fighter. It didn't happen that way though. A rough wump sounded where the whine of lasers should have been, and instead of twin orange beams she saw a pair of crackling blue quantum bolts speeding toward her hapless target.
In a split second she realized what had happened. She'd been paying too much attention to her personal problems and not enough on what she was doing. She'd forgotten to switch her fighter's systems over to training mode! In a panic, she smacked the comm switch on the dashboard and yelled frantically, "Max! Look out!"
But even as she shouted her warning, Max's Banshee was already rocketing out of the way of her lethal attack, but not quite quickly enough. The outer edge of one of the quantum bolts grazed Banshee Two's wingtip, sending it spiraling out of control.
Kim was beside herself with self-torment. She shouted into her comlink, "Hang on, Max! I'm coming!" Fighting back tears, she urged her Banshee forward more quickly and started activating the tractor beam systems. But before she'd covered half the distance between herself and Max's stricken plane, another Banshee swooped in and got a tractor lock. It was Sam. Under the influence of Sam's tractor beam, Max's Banshee straightened its flight path and coasted to a stop, broken wingtip sputtering fitfully and venting a thin streamer of gas.
Commander Carter's angry voice boomed over the comlink now. [I'm terminating this exercise! Banshees, return to base. Lieutenant Tycho, I'm gonna be wanting a word with you when we get back!]
"Aye, Commander," replied Kim. She throttled up her engines again and dutifully fell into line behind the others, heading back towards the distant Hornet. She angrily brushed away her tears, furious at herself for her total incompetence -- for almost getting Max killed. She knew she was in big trouble when they got back to the ship, but she had it coming.
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