Untamed Flame || R. Floyd

22

She is in the middle of the pop-up strike when she hears the booming voice of Maverick. His breath is ragged but it's there.

"Dagger two, status."

"Almost there, Mav. Almost there."

She groans as she inverts over the hill. "Fanboy, where's the laser?" She manages to say.

"Moonlight, there's something wrong with this laser. Shit! Deadeye, dead eye, dead eye!"

"Fuck!" She cusses. "Come on, guys, we're running out of time. Get it online!"

"I'm trying!"

"Come on, fanboy!" Rooster shouts.

"Nearly there! Nearly there!"

"Come on, fanboy, get it online."

She shakes her head. "There's no time. He has to drop blind."

Adamant on succeeding Fanboy shouts back. "No, Moonlight, I got this!"

"No time. Pull up."

"Bombs away!"

"Bombs away! Bombs away!"

The three planes pull up into a steep g climb. This was the one thing she did not like when she and Maverick ran the course. Her lungs compress and as they said it feels like an elephant is sitting on her chest. She grunts and moans as pain fill her body. She pants as the climb gets worse and worse.

At last, they hear over the comms, "bull's-eye, bull's-eye, bull's-eye!"

"Miracle number two," she groans out. "We're not... out of this... yet."

"Here it comes," Maverick says at the top of the hill. "Radar warning! Smoke in the air. Phoenix, break right."

"Emergency jettison. Dagger three defending!"

Bob shouts, "here comes another one!"

"Dagger one defending." After a moment he says, "Rooster, status." But they are still on the hill feeling the burn in their bodies. At last, they shoot up able to level up.

"Oh, my god," he says. "Smoke in the air! Smoke in the air!"

"Break right, payback! Breaking right."

"On your six, Moonlight."

"Deploying countermeasures. Dagger five defending!" She deploys one of her flares destroying one of the missiles.

"Oh, my god, here they come!"

"Sam on your six, Rooster!"

"Deploying countermeasures. Negative contact."

"Dagger one defending."

"Talk to me, Bob."

"Break right, Phoenix! Break right!"

"Mav! Nine o'clock! Nine o'clock!"

"Rooster, two more on your six."

"Dagger two, defending."

"Payback, Sam on your nose."

"Dagger four defending!"

"Moonlight, tally two, three o'clock." She does a circle taking the Sam through one of Roosters' flares. Though she isn't so lucky with the second one on her tail.

Sam hits her wing knocking her off balance. "Shit!" In no time she pulls the ejection handle before hitting the trees. As she swings in the air she breathes rapidly.

As Finley "Moonlight" Floyd hurtled through the frigid evening sky, the haunting memory of her last ejection clawed its way into her consciousness. The eerie flashback transported her back to a moonlit night in the dense woods, the sharp scent of pine filling the air. The betrayal lingered like a bitter aftertaste.