Operation Zero

"Whoooo-weeee!"

I laughed as Jed spun his aircraft in a complete circle around mine. The idiot was going to get us killed, and I was just laughing. "Alright, Jed, we're supposed to be flight testing, not performing a circus act," I chastised, but there was no heat in my voice. Truth be told, I was having fun too, and if I wasn't expected to be the responsible one, I'd be right there beside him.

A chuckle came from next to me, and I glanced over to see Leo with a cracked-out smile showing through his bearded face. "It always amuses me that even though yer American, ye behave better than we do," he said with a thick Scottish accent.

I grinned at him. "I don't know about better, just a little less reckless."

"Reckless?" Jed's voice breaks through our headphones. "This is the safest flight I've ever done. Ye should see my other stunts."

Before I could think of a response, the sound of his thrusters turning off startled me, and I turned to watch as his jet began to dip and spin in a lazy circle.

"Jed!" I screamed, but Leo only laughed and shook his head.

Another voice entered the headset. This one sounded more British. "Don't panic, Luke, he's just trying to impress you."

"Well, consider me unimpressed, Chris," I deadpanned, and all three of them broke into snickering.

"Aw common, Top Gun, yer gonna hurt my feelings," Jed teased, and I rolled my eyes at the nickname. Or I would have, but they were glued on Jed’s aircraft like I could turn them back on with willpower alone.

“Jed, can you please-“

“Gentlemen am I disrupting something?”

I stiffened at the sound of Colonel Marshal’s stern tone, and I watched as Jed’s thrusters instantly reignited. It'd have been comical if I wasn’t about to shit myself.

“Not at all,” Jed answered smoothly, a little too smoothly coming from him, making it seem suspicious.

“Nice try, Jedison. You forget we get notified for every single fart, hiccup, or sputter your engine makes.”

I pinched my lips together to smother a smile, but from the corner of my vision I could see Leo falling apart in silent laughter, and it was getting harder to hold in. My chest was burning.

"Well, since you ninnies are already saddled in and heading in the right direction, I need you to do something for me. Think you can handle it?” he asked rhetorically. Wasn’t like we could say no.

The four of us answered with an obedient, “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Because it’s an Operation Zero," he said, leaving us all hanging in suspense.

My pulse hummed. There was another foreign object passing through our atmosphere? "You're kidding," I said, and shifted gears to speed up. I noticed Jed did too.

"There's another one?" Jed asked, and I could hear his tone reflect his own surprise and excitement.

"Yep," Marshal replied, and there was a slurp followed by a gulp in the background. I snorted. The man loved his coffee. "This is the fifth foreign entity to enter our atmosphere since The Great War ended. Only this one seemed to have slipped the radar until it got closer. It's probably just more scrap metal, but better check it out just in case. I’m sending you the coordinates now.”

"Got 'em," Leo said to both Marshal and me and set a course to head in the direction indicated.

"Good. Oh, and behave," Marshal said sternly before signing out. The command didn't target the response he was aiming for. Because it felt like a tempting offer to do the opposite.

I changed my trajectory and leaned left. Not by much, though. The Colonel was right. We were basically already on the correct path and the object was just beyond the mountains. How'd we not see it? Oh, right. Jed was demonstrating his Top Gun skills. The asshole. They were always teasing me with the movie since I was one of the few Americans selected to join the New Regional Confederation's air force. Not because they didn't like Americans. In this new world, no one cared about race, religion, or heritage. They only cared about survival, mainly protection, and that heavily relied on those who were the sharpest individuals that could fly an F-00 Hellglider- the fighter jet I was test flying. Well, now we were on a real mission.

I wasn't sure what made me stand out from the other applicants to be chosen. But I never took it lightly. Every day felt like an honor to be piloting this highly-advanced multi-role fighter jet with incredible maneuverability, speed, and most importantly- a superior weapons system. This was my Hellglider, and I didn't mean figuratively. It was encoded to my DNA and would only turn on with a fresh sample of my blood. My damn fingertips looked like I played football with a cactus, but I didn't care. Not when it gets my baby to purr.

"Why are you rubbing your control stick like you're 'bout to jerk it off?" Leo asked, and I barked a laugh.

"Jets need loving, too," I responded while tightening my grip on the yoke and he threw his head back, roaring his own laughter.

"Top Gun."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, Jed?"

"Wanna race?"

My blood lit up with exhilaration. I said I wasn't reckless, but that didn't mean I was always able to resist the sonovabitch's baits. Jed knew I wasn't impervious to challenges, especially daring games like this one. It was a bad idea, but the thrill of danger was what made it all the more irresistible.

"If I win?" I hedged and my voice lowered provokingly.

He chuckled into his mic. "Ye won't but the prize will be loser pays for drinks tonight at Alfie's."

I smiled savagely. Alright, that was enough to effectively persuade me. The price of alcohol nowadays was a robbery. Technically, the cost for anything was, ever since The Great War. Resources were limited, and with the sudden decrease in population, there weren't enough abled bodies to perform the necessary manual labor. It was why the New Regional Confederation was organized, putting together one military so everyone else could fill the other vital roles in society. That, and because we had a common enemy-

"First to reach the peek wins. Do ye agree to those terms?" He asked impatiently, pulling my attention back. I could hear his smug smirk through the headphones, as though victory were already his.

Fuck that. I wasn't paying for his drinks, but he could pay for mine. "Yeah. I'm in. Oh, and Jed?"

"Ye?"

"Eat my dust." I hit the thrusters and lurched forward. But he was only a split second behind, probably about to do the same thing to me.

"Ye little fuck," I hear him curse. Leo and I both chuckled. So does Chris.

"I'm not paying for any of your drinks," Chris said. "So if we lose, leave me out of it."

"Bet you'd still want to reap the rewards if ye guys win though, eh?" Leo asked, and Chris' silence confirming Leo's question had us all once again laughing.

We were rapidly approaching the mountain, going mach-1 and rising. I could faintly see my jet's shadow appear in front of me in a blur, scaling the mountain's gray rocky edges as I neared. Jed's was just below mine, and I knew what his next move was going to be, so I came up with an idea to throw him off. Since I was certain there was a decent enough distance between us, I banked right, cutting him off seconds before he hit his thrusters, making him turn and slow as well.

Chris swore. "Oh, I'm going to bloody yer nose for that," Jed growled, and Leo muttered a string of profanities, of which I only managed to catch the words 'lunatic' and 'death wish'.

"Don't act like you wouldn't have done the same," I retorted with a grin and sailed over the peek, winning our little race.

"I hope ye drink yourself to death," Jed muttered as I did a victorious lap around his jet before settling on his left again. He was my right wingman. My left wingman who completed our small fleet was currently suspended from flying because of a sexist remark made toward her that resulted in a fight. The man in question wasn't currently allowed to fly either. Not because he was suspended. She had a mean right hook and gave him a swollen eye, and a slight concussion. But his biggest injury seemed to be his bruised ego. At least she silenced him from making any more rude remarks.

"Up ahead," Leo said, and pointed at something on his screen. He did this all the time even though I couldn't see what the fuck he was pointing at. From my angle, his screen looked completely blank. It was designed that way so that the pilot wouldn't get distracted while flying.

"Mind dotting it on my screen so I can follow along?" I asked with an edge of sarcasm.

He was silent for a moment as he stared at his control panel. Was he ignoring me or just that focused on the map?

"Leo?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't see anything, so am I still heading in the right direction?"

Another silence. I glanced over at him to see he was concentrating really hard on something. After what seemed like a minute, he finally spoke. "The coordinates the Colonel gave where the object appeared on the radar were here." My screen lit up with a yellow dot- that was Leo's color. "Taking into consideration gravity, wind, its mass, and the rotation of the planet, as well as the time it took us to arrive, its trajectory would bring it here." A second yellow dot appeared, slightly further than the first. Seemed like it wasn't an issue. Only it was. Because the location was dead ahead of us, and nothing was there.

"Okay? So, it went elsewhere and we just need to reroute?" I asked. His pause made me sigh irritably. "Leo, the fuck is wrong?"

"I'm not sure."

"The fuck you mean you're not sure?"

He finally noticed my irritation. "Gimme a sec, will ye? Chris, are you-" He called into the headset, and he didn't even need to finish his sentence as Chris immediately responded, already knowing what Leo was going to ask.

"Yeah, I'm not finding it either."

Leo swore, and his fingers twitched as he typed something into his screen, and I gathered he was recontacting Marshal.

"This is home base, Alpha Hellglider 001 what's your call sign?"

"The Red Devil," he answered, and abruptly followed it with, "I need to speak with Colonel Marshal."

"Regarding?"

He grunted in frustration. Didn't feel too good, did it, buddy? "Our mission, an Operation Zero. This is time sensitive."

I was impressed when she didn't hesitate. Most would when we mentioned there was a foreign object raining down on us. "Redirecting."

There was only a second of silence before Marshal's voice came through. "Luke, have you made contact with the object?"

"Uh," I answered and looked over at Leo. "We can't find it," he replied for me.

"What do you mean?"

"It's not here. We need to learn if the radar picked up its new whereabouts," Chris answered, sounding calmer and less stressed than Leo.

There was a snapping of fingers in the background. "Pull up the imagery on the foreign object," Marshal commanded someone at headquarters. "That's the full area of where it was last spotted? Then where's the object?" I strained to hear the person's voice in the background, but it was too low for me to understand. "Are you telling me, in the three minutes it took for them to get there, the object is no longer in view or the vicinity?" He was raising his voice.

I exchanged a look with Leo. It was a bad day for anyone who got on Marshal's bad side.

I flinched at the sound of something crashing on the other end of the line. Those poor souls, trapped in the path of Marshal's wrath.

"Boys?" Marshal was talking to us now.

"Yes, sir?" We all dutifully answered quickly.

"You're going to need to scout the area since the motion scanner is failing its only purpose," he said indignantly, his annoyance on the matter evident. "Use your sharp eyes and show the Confederation why you were esteemed the best-suited fliers. I'll send your third as well as some other pilots to aid in your search. Don't disappoint me."

A harsh click resounded in my ears, signaling he'd left the call. Knowing him, I had a pretty clear idea that he was about to blow off some steam by barking orders at everyone. He was a military man through and through. Thank heavens I was in the sky.

"Well, you all heard the man, let's us not return emptyhanded," I muttered into the mic.

Jed scoffed. "Finding a shard of metal with our bare eye? Have ye seen our surroundings?"

I peered down at the gray rocky terrain. Everything was gray now, ever since The Great War. The sky lost its blue. The ocean was so murky people fled the coasts. There was never any green, even though it rained constantly. A dark overcast seemed to be ever-present, always obstructing our view of the sun. Sometimes it was hard to tell if the dense clouds were harmless or about to unleash a maelstrom of hail, lightning, or winds that'd match a level-five hurricane. But even "harmless" clouds still had their surprises. Like low temperatures that'd frost our windows and engines. Or carry enough static to cause our systems to glitch- which I assumed was how the object got past the motion sensors monitoring the atmosphere. It wasn't safe to fly. Never. Not with these conditions. But we knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this. We just had to be smart and trust our instincts while in the air.

"Orders are orders," I said, though my tone lacked conviction. I didn't believe we'd find anything either, not at this point. He gave a sarcastic grunt but didn't object, not like he could. We were already in a tight spot with the Colonel, and none of us wanted to provoke him further.

We circled the area for about ten minutes before a familiar voice came through the headset. "Alpha Hellglider 001, this is Hellcat en route to your location, fleets Beta and Omega escorting my craft."

I couldn't contain the smile that spread across my face. It'd been a week since we last flew with Julliet and her co-pilot, Andy. She'd been restless being grounded, and I could hear the relief in her tone now that she was finally in the air again. "Glad to have you back, Hellcat. Beta, Omega, report in."

"Havoc here, leading Beta."

"Domino leading Omega. What's the status, Top Gun?"

Leo chuckled beside me as I rolled my eyes. I still couldn't believe that nickname turned into my call sign. Bastards. "No sight of the object, but our search is still ongoing," I answered. "Take the eastern region of the area, and Beta, take the western. We'll finish covering the central then take the southern grounds. Stay in our channel for contact and out of the weather," I warned as I noticed a flash of light in the distance. Great. As if we needed more to worry about.

A blur to my left caught my attention. I turned my head to look out the window, seeing the silhouettes of Julliet and Andy in the cockpit of their Hellglider.

"Gangs all here," Chris chimed with excitement.

"Aw, sounds like you missed me," Julliet teased, and I could hear her grin. "So who won the race over the peek?"

We all snorted. Nothing got past her. "I did," I stated proudly as Jed spouted something noncommittal.

"Ah, don't be such a sourpuss," Leo taunted him and looked at me with a wink.

"Any idea what we're looking for?" Andy tuned in, getting straight to work like the professional he was.

"Something metallic," Jed said bitterly. "I hope ye had lunch first because this might take all day."

"Maybe not all day," I said as the shiny object came into view. It was small, but that might've been because it was far off in the distance in the general area I had just seen a flash of light come from.

Leo leaned forward in his seat and squinted, noticing it now, too. "What do ye think it is?"

Well, for one thing, it wasn't a falling object. I waited for it to descend, but it seemed to be... floating? My gut twisted sickeningly, telling me something was wrong. I opened my mouth to answer when the unbelievable happened. It moved. Not falling, but changing course. It was heading straight for Beta, the fleet I'd just sent west.

"Beta, the object is in sight and approaching your southern flank fast!" I warned and watched as the feet broke apart, scattering from their formation to make themselves a harder target to hit. There were calls going back and forth as the pilots began to scramble.

I couldn't give any orders over the comms as they left no room for anyone to talk. Gritting my teeth, I flared my engines, signaling to my wingmen to follow me. I made this cue in the event our communications were ever jammed or cut off. It was loud, so it could be heard a great distance away if they were too far from me.

They fell back as I made a wide arc to the right, and followed my lead. I noticed Omega had their own signal and changed their heading to also aid Beta's fleet.

The object seemed to have selected a target to 'stalk' and began chasing one of Beta's Hellgliders.

I sped up to keep pace with them, as did every other Hellglider. Beta's were the closest.

"Fuck." From the corner of my eye, I saw Leo type something into his console. "I'm recording this for base," he told me without my having to ask.

"What the fuck is happening out there?" Marshal's voice returned to the comms. For once I was grateful to hear his grumpy tone.

"It appears the object is hunting one of my pilots," Havoc answered.

"It's right on my tail," the pilot said, panicking. "Oh fuck, my alarms just picked up a weapons lock on us!"

Not even a second after I heard that, a bright light flashed, searing my retinas as it took a direct hit on the Hellglider. There was a scream before the craft exploded in a ball of fire.

"Titan's gone down!" Havoc yelled and took off after the object while pelting it with bullets. "You sonovabitch!"

"Havoc, fall back," Marshal ordered, but the pilot either didn't hear or chose to ignore him.

My mouth dried as I watched the object turn at an 180-degree angle and began to fire on him. "Alpha, fall back," I ordered my fleet, and shifted my control to drop altitude, trying to get out of the way of the beam. I barely managed to avoid getting hit in time and Leo whispered a prayer thanking the heavens for my quick reflexes.

"Havoc?" The Colonel demanded. "Havoc check in!"

"Havoc's gone, sir," the last of Beta's fleet answered as she moved to join my formation. "Alpha, this is Trigger, covering your six." I could hear the grief in her tone as she relayed her position.

"Copy that," I replied while forcing back my own wave of emotions. I could imagine how she felt. These were men I'd dined with daily. Men I'd often joke around with and knew on a personal level. But she was a member of their fleet. Practically family. If one of my own were to-

I stopped that train of thought before it had a chance to finish. I couldn't let myself slip into those dark emotions. Not right now. Not while there were people relying on me to have my shit together. "Colonel, what are your orders?"

"I just sent more forces to your position," he answered with a grim edge to his voice. "Can you hold out?"

"I think so," I said, but another voice spoke over mine.

"Colonel, this is Domino, leading Omega. The object seems to have picked up a new target."

"Who?" The Colonel demanded before I could.

"Me."

I whipped my head around to see the object had in fact turned its attention to a nearby Hellglider. It was fast, unbelievably fast, as it streaked towards the craft. Domino seemed to realize the danger we were all in and steered the object away from the rest of us as it closed in on him. "Colonel, tell my family I love them," he said with a break in his voice before his comms went dead.

I closed my eyes as I heard the explosion. It was like a bomb going off in my ears. What the fuck was happening? We were under attack, but I didn't recognize this vessel or the weapon it was using. In The Great War, our enemies flew bulky shuttles, meant to withstand space, which made them slower in our atmosphere, and they used flamethrowers, not lasers. Besides, we won that war. The intelligent beings that attempted to overrun our planet were no match for us. Did some manage to survive and redesign their aircrafts in the few short years they'd been gone? That sounded incredibly unfeasible. It hadn't even been half a decade. How could they accomplish that in such a short span of time?

"LUKE!"

I blinked back into awareness as Julliet's voice penetrated my headset.

"Y-yes?" I mentally cursed myself for the shake in my voice.

"What's the game plan? It's only a matter of time before it selects a new mark."

I squeezed my control tighter as my fingers began to shake. It was all by itself, yet it was still picking us off one by one. Were there more of them? There must be. It'd be suicide for one ship to try and take out a whole planet. Which begged the question... where were they?

I inhaled a deep, unsteady breath as I thought about our choices. This could be a scout or a test pilot documenting our weaknesses, and right now we looked very weak. So we needed to make ourselves seem dangerous. An idea came to mind. Maybe we didn't need to seem dangerous... but something did. Something that'd make them reconsider claiming our planet.

As my plan began to take form, I glanced around the sky, looking for the darkest, scariest cloud I could find.

"Luke," Leo said hesitantly as he watched me. "What are you plotting?"

"This is our world," I answered as I continued to survey the clouds, "and even though it changed, we still know it better than they do." There. I spotted a menacing cloud and redirected my Hellglider in its direction, the others hot on my trail.

"Top Gun, you better not be planning anything heroic," Chris said, seeming to realize what I was doing, and I heard the others swearing while trying to talk some sense into me.

"What's your plan?" Marshal asked.

Instead of answering, I said, "Hey Jed."

"Ye?"

"Want to see what flying recklessly really looks like?"

"Oh, ye stupid Yank! Don't ye dare risk yer life just to prove somethin'," he snapped.

I only laughed and looked over at Leo, completely expecting him to talk me out of it. Only he didn't. "Finally," he said with a large grin. "Show us yer Top Gun skills. And don't get us killed."

Another laugh burst free. "Not a chance. Jed and Chris still owe us free drinks."

"Free drinks? I'll give you my fucking stash if you knock it out," Andy sputtered.

I wanted to assure them everything would work out. That my plan wasn't to die today. But we were running out of time. The vessel was in pursuit again, and any second now it'd select its next victim.

"Hellgliders, on my signal, break off and drop back," I said to everyone, hoping Omega understood this applied to them as well.

The object stabilized behind us, making me think it had picked its new target. "Now!"

They all peeled away and drifted down, but I remained where I was. The object jostled a little, seeming to be thrown off like it wasn't sure how to respond before refocusing on me. It was telling that there wasn't an actual being flying it, and instead, it was being autopiloted. Good to know. That meant whoever was inside or watching had no control over where it'd go unless they switched it back to manual, which would be too late once they figured out my intentions.

It propelled forward at an incredible speed. As planned, I pulled my control stick towards me, pointing the glider's nose heavenward at the darkest cloud I'd ever seen.

"Holy shit," I heard the Colonel breathe. I'd forgotten Leo was recording everything. Well, hopefully, I didn't make an ass of myself to everyone watching back in headquarters.

"I hope ye know what yer doing," Leo said as the cloud swallowed us.

"I hope so, too."

A loud rumbling came from deep in the clouds as if it were a sleeping giant, and our intrusion had just woken it up. The hairs on my body stood as static surrounded us.

"It followed you!" Chris shouted, sounding surprised. "Holy shit, I didn't think it would."

I sighed in relief, only to remember I was facing off against two opponents now. The one behind me, trying to hunt my kind into extinction, and the one before me, a force of nature that had a reputation for being unpredictable. I had to just pray that today it'd perform advantageously.

A loud crack came from somewhere to my right, triggering my fight-or-flight response. I was tempted to pick up speed, but resisted the urge. I didn't want to lose the foreign enemy. Not yet.

I brought the Hellglider deeper into the cloud, probably deeper than any pilot ever dared to go. Wind was picking up, making me battle against it for control of the jet. Then I was startled by the sound of something battering against the metal. It was dark, so I couldn't see what it was, though I didn't need to. I knew it was hail.

Suddenly- yet not unexpectedly- our system began to glitch, and the computer went haywire as a bolt of lightning dashed in front of us.

"This is it isn't it?" Leo asked and licked his lips. "If we don't make it-"

"Don't," I said, interrupting him, and looked over at him. "We're gonna make it." We had to. But if we didn't, then hopefully we at least gave everyone else more time to figure something out.

Another roar came from ahead of us, and I watched in horror as a swirl of static began collecting. At the same time, I noticed a bright light emanating from behind me as the enemy readied their beam to fire on us. Here goes nothing.

I punched the thrusters, picking up speed, and darted out of the way just as the two energies unleashed. They collided and the explosion that resulted was bright enough to rival the sun.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Leo chanted as I tried to outrun its devastation. I didn't realize I was reaching higher elevations until I broke through the clouds and was blinded by another bright light. Only this one felt familiar. The sun.

It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust, but once they did, my stomach did a free fall. Gathered in front of me were the rest of the enemy ships.

"Okay," Leo said. "Ye can't lie and tell me we're going to survive this."

"No. I don't think any human will."

I blew out a heavy breath as we faced off against them. We'd been preparing for the day we'd get attacked again, but we weren't ready for this. Just as I started to accept my fate, the strangest thing happened. They began to retreat.

What the-?

"Wait a second," Leo gasped. "Do they think ye caused that explosion!? HA-HA! Yer a genius! Well done, Top Gun!"

I let out a laugh of disbelief because, by Christ, I think they did! It was the outcome I had hoped for, but I didn't think it'd be plausible.

I glanced back at the dark, oppressive wall of the brume that shadowed our world. This whole time, we thought it was a danger to us. We despised it. But it dawned on me that it wasn't a threat to anything below it. Only the things that tried to pass through it.

Little did we know... it'd been protecting us all along.

I heard cheers through my headset, conveying that headquarters had seen everything. "Alright, Top Gun, well done," Colonel said, and I smiled. "Now get back to base and have your fill of booze. You deserve it."