Attack Mission

The gist of the problem, Viago thought, was that the damn things could fly. At first, he’d hoped the armour was decorative, or that it meant they could only hover, but of course, he’d had no such luck. They could fly, simple as that. And well, Viago had spoken with way more bravado than he actually had when he said — Well, we can fly too.

Of course they could. With planes. Not with their own wings!

This is fine, he thought with clenched teeth. He tried to think of anything else, any other topic in the world, but he kept returning to the unknown beings in the sky. They looked — a little — like them, he thought at first. They didn’t have ears, and they had horns. Then again, they had helmets too, so it wasn’t all too easy to tell. The stories had spread across the realm, about flying aliens invading. Viago’s first thought was to claim it for their own. Skyreach should’ve spread the word that the tech was theirs, just to scare the others into inaction. But his second thought was far more rational. He knew that this would lead nowhere and besides, the Skyborn themselves were way out of their depth.

“We could defend ourselves,” his superior had said, only to be rebuffed almost immediately.

“We could,” another person had said. Each time someone spoke, Viago wondered why he had been called to a meeting, “We could but here’s the thing. By waiting, we could lose any bit of advantage we have. We should attack.”

Ah, he had thought, this is why they called me. Because of course. They needed a pilot gutsy enough to get into their gear, sit into their plane, and actually go out there and face these things, whatever they were. Viago’s superior knew he wouldn’t say no.

And so it was done. Viago was in front of his aircraft, strapped into the front seat and waiting for his co-pilot to arrive. He’d said nothing of this to his friends and his family. He thought — rightfully so! — that they’d be worried. He couldn’t stand the thought of them trying to talk him out of his completely ridiculous mission. Just the thought of Nex’s teary eyes and Lux’s disapproving silence soured his mood.

Besides, Viago was far too proud to say no.

He wanted this. Somewhere shallowly within him, anticipation bubbled, threatening to boil over. He couldn’t even lie to himself and pretend this feeling was hidden deep within. No, it was right there, beneath the surface. Aliens, he thought. Aliens with advanced tech, aliens that didn’t think their city in the sky was impressive enough.

“Oh, it’s you,” a voice rang out next to the craft. Viago realized he’d zoned out.

He recoiled as though he’d been struck, and then he frowned. The man in front of him was a Skyborn, much like himself, and Viago had seen him around, but they’d never spoken. Of course, it would be pretty hard to misplace him for anyone else. After all, he had small wings sprouting from his lower back.

“Do those work?” Viago asked, rudely. He had to admit that too, that he was rude, even though that wasn’t the thought that occurred to him at all before the words left his mouth. It was only the aftermath that felt wrong.

“I’m Lennox,” the other Lovabun offered, smiling, and Viago took a note of the helmet he was holding in his hand. They wore the same uniform. The left wing twitched. “And no, they don’t. Not in a way that matters anyway.”

“Shame,” Viago announced. “We sure could use them now.”

Lennox’s laughter echoed in the nearly empty warehouse. The few people present around the flight dock turned towards them, but Viago paid them no mind. Lennox moved towards their plane.

“Not really,” he said amicably. When he fastened his helmet to his head, a few blonde-pink whisps of hair still hung out. To Viago, his ears only looked normal because he’d gotten used to his own being so squished. “Even if I could fly, I’d be hopeless with them unless I practised using them.”

After that, they hadn’t spoken for a while. Not while they strapped in, not while the command control was giving out the instructions and certainly not while taking off the runway. Even from where they were starting, Viago could see the changed skyscape. A rift opened in the sky like a festered, glittering wound, and they were moving towards it.

With a terrifying strike of panic, Viago thought — nobody else could, or would. The others, as much as he disliked some of them, were ground-bound — or ocean-bound, he thought with a scoff. They were only able to defend themselves. The Skyborn could fly, and that meant they could change something. They could land that first strike and show the newcomers that they were not going to be taken easily.

And the newcomers had made their intentions clear. Viago, like many others on Loova, had no intention of becoming a part of the new order, no matter what the new order meant. He just found it ironically funny that it had taken alien invaders — or whatever the hell those things were — for the Loovanians to put their differences aside, if only for a while. These beings, sprouting from nowhere with their wings and their armour, made their squabbles seem almost petty.

“I’m Viago,” he said as he aimed at the small enemy craft. Judging by the intel they had, it hadn’t contained any living being. A recon unit, or a satellite, maybe. “I don’t think I said that before. You don’t usually work for aviation, do you?”

“I did the training, then a few years out in the field,” Lennox said over the comms from his seat behind Viago. “But you’re right, I don’t usually do this. I never really liked warfare. I’m surprised you do, actually.”

“I don’t like warfare,” Viago shot back, a little irritated, but his next snipe took another small craft down. They weren’t attacking actual whatever-the-hell-aliens-were. Not yet, at least, not until they’d gotten more information. But they were testing things out, just trying to make them weaker. “I usually work in trading.”

It wasn’t his fault that his crafts got attacked so frequently. The first time it happened, he hadn’t expected it, but he’d reacted nearly without thinking, driven by the instinct to survive. And then he’d taken more jobs like that — private jobs for people who expected trouble. People who knew their goods would be stolen without a pilot who wasn’t afraid to shoot first and ask questions later. Viago wasn’t too fussed about it, and he was paid better than he normally would be.

And so they’d put him together with this newbie— with this— whatever. If the man was shivering at the sight of his own shadow, Viago couldn’t help him. He just wished he was paired with someone who he could trust not to blow them out of the sky.

Viago’s attention deviated for just a moment, but Lennox was able to right their aircraft before they made an unexpected turn. So he was good, even though he wasn’t usually a combat pilot, and even though he couldn’t use his wings to fly!

In front of them, the sky’s colour changed into a myriad of colours. Small crafts hovered and rotated before them. They had a job to do.

“With that face, I would’ve never guessed,” Lennox jabbed teasingly. Viago was about to retort, but he turned towards the space in front of them. The field of foreign tech stood still. His to take down. Or his to steal and bring back home, somewhere safe outside of their main bases, where it could be studied.

Besides, he’d heard that jab about his frowning a thousand times by then. That was just his face.

“Nice to meet you, Lennox,” Viago said, “How about you steer our craft, and I’ll shoot these things out of the sky. I reckon we can be done by, say, sundown?”

“Sundown works for me,” Lennox nodded, and Viago’s heartbeat returned to normal. He focused and then counted his targets. He wasn’t paired with someone too scared out of their own shadow. They could do this.