A red enemy icon skittered across the tactical HUD (heads up display) suspended just below Ogba’s eye level. The icon was closing in fast on the green symbol representing her fighter. Her side view monitor caught an image of a Unity Z-30 strike/bomber fighter negotiating a cluster of smaller asteroids before disappearing behind a much larger rock. Reappearing on the other side, the Z-30 swerved around more asteroids, all the while tracking Ogba’s Red Tail, narrowing the parallel gap between them.That pilot is good, Ogba appraised coolly.Unity fighters as a whole could not operate in the belt nearly as well as their NeoAfrican counterparts. Of course, fighter to fighter engagements in and beyond the asteroid belt was the only area in this war where NeoAfricans were actually winning. The Unity fighters’ lack of a good showing seemed to indicate that they either were not accustomed to tactical engagements or had not encountered foes with the advanced skill levels of NeoAfrican pilots.Ogba--call sign, Vicious Vixen--increased velocity, heading straight for a half mile diameter asteroid in her path.A patch of open space provided the enemy fighter with a clear lane of fire. The fighter’s forward pivot guns pulsed a red stream of incandescence toward the Red Tail.Ogba banked left, then dipped avoiding the first file of energy bursts. A second file zipped mostly overhead, within inches of her cockpit, lighting up her perimeter like a dance of lightning.Ogba veered back onto her original path, closing on the asteroid. “Nice try,” the Vixen muttered with a sweet undercurrent of ruthlessness.Well within collision range of the asteroid, Ogba allowed a smile to crack the icy veneer of her concentration. The enemy fighter was pulling up.At the very last survivable second, Ogba did the same. She wrenched at her controls, maneuvering the Red Tail to skirt the razor sharp crags of the asteroid’s surface. The Red Tail’s engines moaned protest as its pilot pushed the fighter beyond limits even its sturdily constructed frame was not designed to withstand. Ogba’s HUD showed the Z-30 rounding the asteroid along its western hemisphere. The Red Tail was flying low toward the big rock’s northern pole.Both fighters were converging on an intersect just 28 miles west of the pole.The auto-targeting screen splashed across Ogba’s HUD, imprinting a blinking crosshair over the icon representing the enemy fighter. When the crosshair stopped blinking that meant the target was acquired.Ogba bit her bottom lip as her thumb pressed the fire control button, releasing a frag missile. The missile’s flight was displayed as a purple dot gliding across Ogba’s ordnance trajectory grid at the bottom of the target screen. When the missile closed within terminal range of the Z-30, Ogba inputted a calculation that slightly altered the missile’s direction. Originally the missile was going to detonate directly in the Z-30’s path.The enemy fighter swerved upward in anticipation of a frag missile burst that would have sent a channeled swarm of shrapnel ripping into the cockpit, turning the pilot into puree.Ogba anticipated the enemy pilot’s anticipation and bared teeth when the missile matched the Z-30’s evasive move, got behind the fighter and exploded. The frag’s detonation was close enough to the Z-30’s rear to send directed shrapnel knifing into its thrusters. A series of small, bright blasts riddled the Unity fighter’s propulsion engines. The Z-30 staggered and slowed.Ogba followed up her attack with a second missile, a Direct Contact Space-to-Space.The enemy pilot attempted to turn his fighter around. Pivot guns spewed a fury of energy at the incoming missile. But the DC was designed to elude all but the most effective anti-missile ordnance. Fortunately, for NeoAfrican fighter craft, Unity fighters had no means of combating missile launches other than their pivot guns or less capable mass drivers, tubes that ejected magnetically launched, fist-sized ball bearings.The DC missile zigzagged effortlessly through a shimmering scatter of energy beam and ball bearing projectiles hurled by the dead-in-the-water Unity fighter. The subsequent impact tore the Z-30 apart, sending one segment whirling toward the asteroid’s surface. The other segment was jettisoned upward by the force of the DC blast before disintegrating in a blossoming swell of hot gas.“Bogie eliminated,” Ogba announced with a coldness to match the chill beyond her cockpit window.
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