text: Bernadette was pissed. She grabbed her hair in both hands. Sweeping it back in a fluid motion, she snagged a hair tie off her wrist and bound it out of her way. In quick succession she pulled the hatch shut, adjusted her safety harness, and fired up the Flyer; its twin turbines whined and came to life. As the engines powered up, the craft gently rose a few centimeters off the roof of her complex. Her injuries still ached, but she ignored the pain. She slammed the gear retraction button, stumpy landing gear folded in under the craft. She turned the steering yoke hard to the left, artfully manipulating the yoke and pedals. The nose of the craft rose, and it turned ninety degrees. Leaning into the turn she finessed the throttle, and the little ship tore off into the night sky. “I’ve had enough of this sonofabitch,” she said angrily. The craft rolled slightly right. Turning northwest she began following course to the target area 250 klicks away. En route she took a little time to plan her attack. The trip was short, and she had rushed through her plan. Normally she was methodical in her preparations, but this guy had angered her for the last time and she had to end him. She flew at high altitude in a wide arc aimed to the west of the target, the craft in whisper mode as she went. At 200 klicks out she switched to stealth mode. The flyer went deathly quiet and slipped off any radar screens that had been observing her transit. Her little, highly modified ship had a skipjack transponder that was feeding false information to the ground. Because the skipjack lied, ground controllers observing her flight would believe the small vessel had finished a short hop flight. It was decidedly illegal, but then again, so was her entire profession. In-bound now, at 100 clicks from her enemy she put the craft into cloak mode. All exterior running lights went out, her profile vanished from the night sky. The ship was silent and invisible to all observers, electronic or otherwise. Approaching 50 clicks to the target, she dropped out of the clouds. The little flyer zoomed quietly down to just below treetop level and she did a too-quick scan as she slowed her approach. She loosened the harness a bit as she had been straining forward with rage the entire trip and it was cutting into her shoulders. His towering flagship building appeared ahead, looming menacingly over the city; it was an homage to his ego. Bernadette slowed her approach further, eventually drifting to within 20 meters of the glass-fronted 6 th floor of the skyscraper. She took a moment to pause and recon the surroundings. It was late, there were no flyers or ground cars parked in the lot below her. In the lot’s dim lights, nothing moved. She turned her attention to the task at hand. Thumbing a couple controls on the yoke she drifted slightly closer to the building’s glass face. In a moment the little ship began climbing the 500-meter height of the immense building. The ship stayed level with the ground, and she watched its reflection as it sailed upward. She intended to fly straight up the side and silently pop onto the roof. After disembarking she would enter the little access building at the top, then it was a quick trip one flight down to his Penthouse apartment. If her hasty plan worked well, it meant that she would not have been detected by building defenses. All was quiet, the building AI had not noticed her. Her tiny ship’s mods were very expensively and carefully crafted to allow her to arrive undetected just about anywhere she wished. She gripped the yoke fiercely; her anger had not subsided. She teased the controls and the ship rose more rapidly. At speed, it was a very short hop up the building and over the edge of the roof. She intended to land, dismount, and rush to the Penthouse. Fate, ever the clever bitch, had other plans. As the ship peaked and bounded over the edge it bumped straight into a larger craft parked atop the building. The lightweight flyer rammed nose first into the bigger ship, then bounced upward and spun about uncontrolled. It slammed back down to the roof and skidded sideways; its right side thudded into the fuselage of the bigger craft. The tail smashed into the other ship with a tearing sound. It lurched viciously and careened backwards across the roof, ripping a gaping hole in the corner of the access shed on the far side. Ship and shed had sustained major damage. Onboard, alarms screamed. So much for surprise. The starboard engine nacelle had taken the brunt of the hit. That engine shrieked and spat metal through a gash in the hull. The ship, now crippled, labored to stay aloft but finally gave up and slammed to the roof. The ship’s AI announced, “Critical damage to airframe. Vessel unsalvageable.” Bernadette’s teeth had slammed together in the crash. She tasted blood. Rattled, she flipped the yoke aside, popped the harness off, and bolted out through the hatch. As she threw herself onto the ground, she tucked and rolled. This eased some of the impact, but she felt her left shoulder pop as she hit the roof hard. She scrambled to her feet, smelling the fuel spurting out from some artery in her damaged craft. Spitting blood and tooth fragments, she grabbed her injured shoulder and skittered across the roof. Behind her the ship said, “AI upload commencing, abandoning vessel.” Her best hope now was to use the larger ship for cover. As she ran, she glanced back, and the expected thing happened. The door to the little roof shed slammed open and a man appeared backlit in the doorway. It was him; he had a gun. “Shit,” she muttered as she sped up to put the large craft between herself and his gun. “This went to hell quickly.” Crouching now behind the front of the vehicle she noticed skid marks caused when her ship bumped into it. It sat canted sideways away from the little building and the landing gear were bent. It was larger, but sleeker and lower-slung than her ship. The dented nose provided enough cover if she stayed low. Edging carefully out from behind the ship, she looked down the hull. She could see that the end of the stubby winglet that had stabbed her ship to death was barely damaged. She spat blood as she muttered, “So fucking stupid of me.” Her words came out slurred; her jaw ached; she suspected she had broken it. Across the roof, ass-end against the building, her ship belched smoke. Its fuel was now spurting onto the surface like an arterial bleed. The man in the doorway ignored the little dying craft and called out across the expanse. “Goddam it,” he shouted, “Whoever you are, I’m gonna kill you for this.” Bernadette recognized the voice. It was Marcus, her intended target, and soon-to-be dead former fiancée. He shouted again, “You’re an amateur and a hothead, only an idiot would try something like this without checking the roof approach first.” He was partly right. Her anger had gotten the best of her. She had rushed over and popped up crudely to try to take out the best hitman in the country. She ranked right behind him, although you could not tell it from this little cockup. It was, simply put, without elegance. Unworthy of the second-best assassin. “Idiot,” she muttered. She cooled her temper and calmed herself. Slowing her breathing she took stock of her injuries. ‘Hands and fingers, knees and toes’ went her mental checklist. It was a joke she had learned from her father, inventorying her injuries with a little child’s rhyme helped her focus. Blood ran down her face and neck. She grabbed her injured arm, and with a hard yank popped her shoulder back into place. “Look, you can’t get away,” Marcus intoned, “Your flyer is wrecked, and it’s a long drop to the ground. And, well, I have a gun.” He was bragging, certain that whoever was on his roof was toast. “We’re gonna have to cooperate to work this out. Can we just talk, ok?” Bernadette realized his tactic immediately: lull the enemy into a false sense of hope by seeming to be perfectly reasonable. Then vaporize them the second they step out from behind cover. “Okay, think fast, find the advantage,” she whispered. “I’m hurt, pinned down, and he’s armed.” She patted her hip for her blaster. It was still in its holster. At least she hadn’t lost it in the chaos. Relieved, she whispered, “So am I, good. But I don’t think I can outshoot him. He’s always been a little faster.” She peeked out from behind the nose of the craft, certain he would not fire. He wouldn’t risk further damage to his beloved flyer. As long as she stayed low and hidden behind it, she was safe. A glimpse around the craft told her three things: His gun was at the ready, her ship was dying and aflame, and he was far too close to it. As if the tiny ship understood all that, it let out a loud scream as the damaged starboard engine began to tear itself apart. She stepped out from the safety of the flyer and there was a loud bang. The starboard engine died loudly. With another bang its turbine tore through the nacelle, launching itself just over Marcus’ head. It surprised him and he ducked. Finally noticing her coming around the front of his flyer, he called out her name in shock, “Bernadette? I thought I...” a third bang distracted him. More engine debris tore through the little flyer. This time ripping through the port engine. Marcus startled, ducked once more. Before he could fully register what was going on, she raised her blaster and fired, not at him, but at her little ship. Bernadette threw herself down and watched the show. Marcus’ eyes grew wide as he realized that he was already dead. The small flyer erupted into a massive ball of flame, smoke, and shrapnel. Marcus was slammed against the shed and torn apart before he could finish his thought, "...killed you." As the fireball rose and smoke billowed, pieces of the little ship and Marcus began raining down on the rooftop. She grinned through broken front teeth. “So much for you, you bastard,” she said. Sitting up now she gathered her thoughts. In a moment she rose up from the rooftop, dusted herself off and put together a contingency escape plan. Coming around the side of the large flyer she hastily checked to see how badly damaged it was. The tip of the winglet was dented and there were some scorch marks from the blast. She could see no holes from the shrapnel thrown by the explosion. Looking back at her wrecked craft she said, “Goodbye little girl,” and opened the hatch before her and clambered inside. After a quick survey of the controls, she fired up the craft and rose from the deck. It was larger and much heavier, which had made all the difference in the initial collision. But it was very similar to her own ship. Standardized controls and armaments made all the difference in this case. She eased it over the side and spun it about, angling the stern away from the building. Looking over the mess she had made, she was glad there wouldn’t be enough left of him to fit in a coffee mug. She backed away and began descending the tower rapidly. She flicked a switch on the yoke and the twin AU/G-350 phase canons on either side of the cockpit roared to life. The ship dropped lower and lower; the 350s tore the building into two ragged halves. She said to herself as she held the trigger, “Burn it down, Bernadette.”