Jackson “Two Jacks” Murphy rocketed down the launch ramp, his fingers white as he sailed from the dull gunmetal gray of the launch tubes to the intense black of space, the blue-green planet above him, a sea of twinkling stars spread out before him. Jamming the stick down and throttling up he roared up into place alongside his flight leader, they were headed out to meet the mysterious incoming objects. Flipping the toggle for his HUD to ramp up he heard the high pitched whine of targeting computer kick on.

Glancing at the HUD his mouth dropped as the six-large objects began disgorging dozens of smaller blips on the screen. Hearing the static crackle of the flight leader echo across the headsets, “Alright boys and girls we have bandits incoming! We have fast movers, stay frosty!” With that everyone shut down all non-essential communications as they barreled towards the Angar-Ryllan fighters. In a matter of seconds, Jack was in the proverbial shit. He banked his fighter into a twisting dive, following his flight lead as they tore through a horde of boomerang shaped dull black fighters. All around him flashes of high intensity lasers light up the sky like lances of days of yore as both sides began in earnest their deadly dance in the high orbit above Darashal.

Racing through a stream of heavy laser fire, Jack saw ahead of him several of the black Angar-Ryllan fighters bank and turn towards him, as he did so his flight leader opened up with his own turbo lasers, firing a series of intense amber energy towards the turning fighters. Following his leader Jack checked his six and was a little miffed to see a bandit was closing in them. Throttling back he turned inside the bandit and flipped up and over so the Angar-Ryllan was now between he and his flight lead. Accelerating forward he raced after the black ship as it tried to kill his lead. 

Dropping the hammer he felt the surge of power ripple through the fighter as he closed the distance, all the while his computer started lining it up for a kill, once the lock on triggered, Jack throttled his mic, “Tally ho!” he said as he unleashed a nuclear tipped missile. Pulling up and away as the projectile raced towards the ship, he managed to catch a glimpse of his lead getting hammered by the ship just before it exploded in a fiery ball of debris then suddenly flaming out.

A sickening feeling came over Jack as he whipped his fighter around, accelerating it through a series of harsh Snap-S turns trying to gain some distance from the fight. Roaring on after burners the sleek single engine fighter skittered and darted until it was nearly two-thousand miles from the battle. 

Lazily pulling up and turning his fighter back towards the fight, he just gaped. Brilliant flashes of light followed by sudden and bursts of energy before they faded to nothing. Jack licked his lips as he began to easy the throttle forward heading back into the fight. Had he looked behind him he would have seen one of the large disk shaped Angur-Ryllan assault ships entering the atmosphere of Darashal.

The large assault ship roared through the atmosphere creating a series of sonic booms and a massive contrail as it dipped from frigid space to the much warmer upper-atmosphere then raced downward until it created a billowing roiling cloud as it headed towards one of the small settlements.