Terranovus
Chapter XX - Are You Ready?

I thought he wasn’t serious, but he was.

Almost immediately Hyun received a message from Philon/Flynt telling us the Army knew our location and were coming our way. We had only a few minutes to prepare.

We climbed out of the vehicle and ran across the tarmac to the small fighter jet. It was smooth and sleek and packed with missiles and machine guns. I followed Hyun who pulled out his security swipe from his pocket and swiped it across a hatch on the aircraft’s underbelly.

The reader flashed green and the hatch door opened to reveal a small cockpit and another seat positioned a little higher. It had its back to the cockpit and had its own controls.

“That’s your seat,” said Hyun and I looked up at it apprehensively and gulped. The seat was small, and the controls were massive. There were at least fifty buttons to choose from and I didn’t have a clue what they did. “It’s easy,” explained Hyun and he stepped back to allow me to climb up, “it’s like playing a video game. You just choose your weapon and point and shoot.” I thought back to the video games I played with the boys back home and knew none of them compared to this.

I climbed up and squeezed into the seat. I twisted my neck and watched Hyun slam the hutch door shut and jump into the pilot’s seat. He buckled his seatbelt then started pressing buttons and flicking switches on the control panel in front of him. I felt the engine rumble into life and I hurriedly put my seatbelt on too.

Oh gosh, this was actually happening.

“Looks as though we’ve got company,” Hyun shouted above the engine. I looked out of the window in front of me and saw an array of Army vehicles racing through the airfield entrance. They emerged onto the tarmac and positioned themselves in a semi-circle around us. Soldiers stepped out of the vehicles and aimed large semi-automatic rifles at us. One of the soldiers stepped forward with a large megaphone.

“We have you surrounded. Put your hands up where we can see them.”

Hyun thrust the centre stick forward and the fighter jet jolted into movement.

Immediately bullets rained down on us. I screamed and ducked my head. The bullets pounded on the bulletproof steel like hail and I heard Hyun laughing behind me. He was loving this.

He pressed down on the accelerator and the plane moved forward. It quickly built up an impressive speed and a handful of the Army vehicles quickly reversed out of the way as the fighter jet moved towards the airstrip. The bullets rained down on us harder but they didn’t even make a dent.

“Terrafighter Tomcat G-12, you do not have permission to fly,” crackled a voice through the cockpit’s radio. Hyun smirked as he grabbed the radio mouthpiece and spoke into it.

“Army Base Foostie, can you please confirm if it looks as though I care?”

Hyun flung the mouthpiece over his shoulder and grabbed hold of the controls again. We were now positioned at the start of the airstrip.

“Are you ready? Hold on!” he yelled and thrust the controls forward. The fighter jet flew forward down the airstrip and I clenched my teeth together as my organs and bones pressed back into my seat. It built up to a momentum speed and I held onto my seat terrified. My stomach backflipped as we lifted off the ground.

I went to cheer but stopped as movement on the ground caught my attention. A second fighter jet was moving, it was turning towards the airstrip. I spun around to tell Hyun but saw he was stressing over the cockpit controls. It was his first time flying a real aircraft.

I glanced back at the fighter jet and saw it positioning itself on the runway. The soldiers weren’t trying to stop it.

Damn it, I thought, once in the air it was probably going to shoot us down. Scratch that, would definitely shoot us down.

I took a deep breath and looked down at the controls in front of me. Just like a video game, I reminded myself. I activated the interactive screen and watched amazed as the screen lit up and listed installed weapons, ammunition, altitude levels, firing range stats...

I quickly scrolled through the weapons: missiles, cannons, bombs, machine guns - it had the lot. I stopped at the missile function and tapped activate. My front window lit up with an electronic viewreplaceer and a replaceer target.

“Tilly, why have our missiles just activated?” yelled Hyun.

“Don’t worry!” I shouted and enlarged the viewreplaceer so the fighter jet was positioned in the centre of the target. I went to press “lock target” but hesitated. There would a person in that jet, perhaps two.

The jet on the tarmac was now gathering speed so I quickly shifted target and slammed the red button in front of me. Our jet shuddered and I watched as our missile flew forward and slammed deep into the runway, just metres in front of the jet.

The ground exploded and the blast flung the jet backwards and over onto its back.

“Yes!” I screamed with joy. I turned to Hyun pleased and saw him smiling impressed.

He pressed down on the accelerator and turned back to the airfield. We were now so far away I was just able to make out tiny soldiers rushing forward to help their comrades. I smiled and rested my head back on my headrest. I hadn’t just stopped the fighter jet from chasing us, I had now stopped any other jet from leaving the airbase too.

“How far away is the missile station?” I asked Hyun.

“Ten minutes,” he replied.

And so I leaned forward and flicked through the controls on my interface, keen to familiarise myself with the function and purpose of each button before we arrived. Time passed quickly and it seemed as though I had only clicked my way through half of the settings before Hyun announced we had arrived.

I looked up and saw a speck of metal near the outer rim of the atmosphere.

“Plan of attack?” I asked Hyun and glanced at the clock. We had eight minutes until their release. In the corner of my eye I watched Hyun look up at the missile station.

“Just shoot ’em,” he said.

“Sounds good to me,” I mumbled and fumbled with the controls in front of me. One missile to destroy all the missiles should do the trick. I waited until we were close enough to make out small individual missiles. They were packed tightly together and I couldn’t rid the feeling of betrayal - my Dad had known about these. For protection, he had explained, during my tour of the Army Base.

“For the Sectors,” I said.

“For the Sectors,” Hyun repeated.

I activated the viewreplaceer and aimed it so the missile station was in the centre of the target and I locked on it. This was finally going to be the end. I raised my hand above the red button-

“Wait!” cried Hyun.

I noticed it too.

Thousands, tens of thousands of small cylinders, falling, tumbling out of the metal platform, flying poised and determined, each programmed with one mission - to destroy the Sectors.

“Shit,” I cried and hurriedly looked over the controls.

“They’ve released the missiles early,” panicked Hyun, “they must have realised what we were planning.”

I flicked through the weapons on the system, I didn’t have a clue if any of them would help.

“They’re not bulletproof,” yelled Hyun, “if you shoot them they’ll explode.”

I selected the machine gun function and swore as the computer told me the shooting range was too short.

“Get closer!” I yelled to Hyun.

The jet rushed forward with a burst of power and I wiped away my tears that were falling uncontrollably. Tommy ... Simon ... Jack ... I couldn’t let them die. I couldn’t let anyone from the Sectors die. I refreshed the screen but the warning still appeared.

“Faster!” I screamed.

Finally, my screen flashed green and I blasted a round of bullets at the nearest cluster of missiles.

The impact was instantaneous and the blast lit up the sky and shook our jet. Hyun quickly tilted the jet sideways to avoid the flying shrapnel.

“Keep going,” encouraged Hyun, so I shoved the controls forward and fired again at a bundle of missiles falling in unison to our right. My bullets hit target one after the other and the missiles satisfactorily exploded in sequence. I scanned the skies and saw there were still thousands of more missiles.

“Left! Left! Left!” I cried out to Hyun. There was a group of them that were travelling faster than the others and were already a few hundred yards below us. Hyun thrust the accelerator forward and my stomach flipped forward too - thank goodness I hadn’t eaten in over nineteen hours. I glanced down at the missiles and saw we barely had closed the distance. They were travelling at almost the same speed we were.

I switched the computer to missile mode and locked target to the centre missile that was leading the pack and slammed my fist on the launch pad. Our jet shuddered and our missile shot forward with impressive speed and smashed into the lead missile. The explosion was ear-piercing and I watched amazed as a domino effect started and the other missiles exploded too.

“Back! Back! Back!” I demanded, spotting a new cluster of missiles breaking away from the main action. I glanced at Hyun who was sweating profusely and leaning over the controls like his life depended on it.

I switched the aircraft’s settings to machine gun mode again and together, Hyun and I, navigated our way through a maze of missiles and explosions. We worked in sync, and flew left and right and up and down, chasing the missiles as they tumbled through the sky. Obeying their programmed orders. It was only after I destroyed what must have been the 800th missile did I realise how far they had tumbled through the sky.

Tops of skyscrapers could be seen poking out from beneath the smog and clouds.

We had reached the Sectors.

Boom!

I twisted and cried out as a missile hit a skyscraper. The building shuddered and immediately began to crumble in pieces. In retaliation, I slammed the controls and fired a few rounds at a group of missiles that were quickly flying through the sky and towards the Sectors. I hit three but two flew into the depths of the districts and exploded with such force that buildings and skyscrapers started to disintegrate. I sobbed and continuously fired at the many more missiles that were falling towards the Sectors. There were still thousands of them.

“I can’t do this,” I cried to Hyun.

“You must! Think of how many missiles you’ve destroyed so far, how many lives you’ve saved!” he shouted back and lurched the jet to the right to avoid a falling missile. The missile fell and buried itself into one of the districts. The blast was the size of a soccer field and I felt it rumble in my ears.

With renewed determination, I fired again and again and again. The noise was deafening, and as each missile slipped through my radar, I blocked my ears to the rumble and focused on the missiles I did have power over. What felt like hours but perhaps only a few minutes passed by when suddenly a warning appeared on my dashboard.

Low Ammunition.

Damn it! I watched my bullets slowly diminish until I had no choice but to shove the controls over to missile mode. I only had eighteen missiles to left.

“Hyun...” I started.

“I know,” he replied, “we’re doing the best we can.” I used my precious missiles wisely and only fired them at clusters of missiles that weren’t too close to the ground already. I couldn’t risk causing any further damage to the Sectors. I watched my ammunition slowly decrease in the corner of my screen. Fifteen ... ten ... eight ...

Suddenly the fighter jet convulsed and spun out of control. Warning sounds blared from the cockpit.

“What’s happening?” I cried out.

Hyun regained control of the jet but now it was shuddering fiercely. I risked a glance behind me and saw all of his cockpit warning lights flashing a critical red.

“Something hit us!” called out Hyun. “Something small, perhaps debris. But it’s done a lot of damage!”

I looked up at the hundreds of remaining missiles in despair. So many had been destroyed but many more continued to fall. I looked around at the Sectors and districts. Not one building had been untouched. They all laid in turmoil, destroyed and unrecognisable. Smoke and dust swirled, making visibility so poor that-

Bang!

“No!” cried Hyun.

One of our wings clipped the foundations of a building and the jet spiralled out of control. I clutched my seat and closed my eyes and screamed as our other jet wing hit another building and the jet flipped forward and down. I thought I heard Hyun shout something like brace yourself or prepare yourself before the jet crashed and my vision went black.