As the formation of fighters broke up into individual dances, Tash found herself on a head-on course with one of the approaching invid mechas. She fired a burst from her gun pod and broke off, not willing to play a game of chicken with the alien insect. She never knew if she hit him, because another crossed her field o view, spitting fire at an Alpha-beta pair. Tash banked after the new target, chewing at his tail with a sustained burst of fire.

The bandit came apart and spun off into oblivion, and the Tirolian banked away too. Never flying straight, never staying to watch, always assuming someone was gunning for your tail – that was how you survived a dogfight.

In a moment’s calm,s he spotted one of the two human fighters flying with her group making a kill – and seemingly not noticing the bandit closing in behind her. Tash swore and started to shift her plane into battroid mode – she’d never get her nose around to save the human otherwise. 

Her efforts weren’t needed, however. She watched as the human made an almost-perfect battroid evasion, destroying the bandit in the process. She raised her eyebrows, impressed, before the human’s voice came over the squadron channels. Her English wasn’t perfect, but she understood smug when she heard it.

[i]The human’s trying to show us up, huh?[/i] She thought, frowning, as she shifted back into fighter mode and took off again, angling in on a loose pack of Invid shocktroopers that were trying to brute-force their way through to the capital ships.

“Wex to squadron. Bandits on my one. Engaging, someone cover me.” She said over the radio, voice terse. Regardless of whether someone actually followed her in, she lanced down at the enemy fighters, raking the formation with cannonfire.