It had been a smooth flight, in spite of some delay due to a headwind.  A small bazaar with a long airstrip in the suburbs around old Minneapolis had given him a modest deal on fuel and he had even had a lucky find, a P-90 rigged with a pulse laser attachment.  Pity it lacked the necessary power pack.  Still, it had a couple magazines and one was even full.  That was a hundred shots if he got into a crazy tight spot.  Ryan Lungfirst hoped that he would never need to use it.

The meeting place was coming up fast, but he knew that he was running behind schedule, so he maintained altitude instead of descending.  He searched the sky below him until he saw it, a small group of planes that were on an exit vector from the meeting place.  He was late for the meeting, yes, but not late for the job.  He adjusted his course slightly to match the direction of the other planes and continued at his cruising speed until he closed the remaining distance.  He was still high above the other planes and behind them as his shadow slipped forward until it drifted across first one and then another of them to settle over the canopy of the Iron Jackson.  It was then that Ryan Lungfirst broke radio silence with a steady voice muffled by his altitude mask.

“Long-Dive to Iron Jackson.  Holding at 6 O-Clock high.”

There wasn’t that much more for him to say.  He didn’t know who the other pilots were or even the full details of the job.  But, he did know his plane.  Lungfirst was not inclined to be overconfident but he had long since learned not to be nervous or worried.  Those states of mind made it easier to panic and panic is a killer.