Dec 25th.

Chapter 15 - Ginger finds that he can fly

I wake up. It’s what, 4 a.m. 0-400 hours. I guess it’s early, but to me it feels late. It feels like I’ve slept in for too long as my head is aching slightly, my mouth is dry, my whole body is groggy and my mind is tired. I have overslept. The symptoms would suggest a hangover, sure, but this is not a hangover as I’ve not drunk for a week or two. I slide out of bed, get a uniform on, walk over to the sink, wash, go to the mess, have my breakfast. My mind is waking up slowly, but it’s not there yet. The cold outside activates my body, energising it, but I can’t get the tiredness out of my eyes, the sleepy messages telling my brain that it’s been asleep for too long. 

It’s not that I’ve forgotten, there is the dull ache that means it could be the last time I ever get to fly a plane/breathe, but that’s always been there, it’s part of the job. I was a twenty-minuter once, but that extended to half an hour and then the next four years. So I can’t be too bad a pilot. I would be more scared if I was facing the Germans. I’ve seen them in action. Sure, I know I can survive, but I have seen the destruction they cause. But today, I know not what I am to face. It could be a walk in the park. It could all end badly, it could just be slightly more difficult. It’s the uncertainty. But even that is not excessive. It’s just at the back of the mind. 

Why have I survived? I guess it’s simple. I’ve stayed alive so long. It’s all about appearance. I have a terrible tally, actually. It’s only in the thirties, not what I said before. I’ve killed thirty-five Germans. At least, I hope it’s not that much, but that’s how many I’ve shot down. Over four years. The real aces have killed tens more, into the hundreds. Someone like Baron Von Richtofen, I would never go near him. He’s too infamous. But he’s also a survivor. He’s more likely to come out top. And I guess that’s kind of the reputation that I’ve gained. A survivor, someone who has been there for the full hog and is recognisable even to the enemy. Only the bravest few would ever dare go near the Baron, and so only the bravest few come near me. But I won’t have that recognition to this enemy, they would just come after me anyway, lots of them. 

I look around at the other men assembled. It’s tragic really. Some of them have been here a couple of years like myself, the majority only a few months, the twenty-minuters who’s allotted time was not finished before the end of the war. The ones who wanted to stay on. 

The knowledge of your own death really is not as bad as it sounds. Somewhere along the course of your life, you realise that death is inevitable. It’s a matter of waiting. The only scary part is not knowing exactly how long to wait, and in what form. But this is different. You feel you are able to answer those two unknown factors. It’s relaxing. No longer do you have to worry. It becomes easier to think about death. The prospect is welcoming. Well, comforting. It becomes an answer, not a solution. The blissful warmth of nothingness, like a return to the womb, endless sleep, lack of knowledge, but no questions to come before answers. Lack of worry, lack of concern, lack of suffering. The suffering that can bring on death. 

To think like this is not to bring a mass of suicides, because to live is to have. And that means to have families, friends, lovers, pets, neighbours, colleagues, acquaintances. And nobody wants to hurt any of these by actively rushing to your own death in battle. Plus, you certainly don’t want to endanger your side in any way. But to die means that you can feel no guilt for dying as it is against your will, and that there can no longer be any part of you to feel any kind of remorse for your own death or for others’ loss.

Whilst I’m standing here, looking around, someone puts down his kitbag. He’s standing right next to it, but I go up, pick it up and scarper. Immediately he’s following me. Chasing after me, screaming at me to put it down. He’s catching up, he’s quite significantly more athletic than me. I just stop. Dead. He crashes into the back of me. I turn round, and give it back to him. He asks me what’s up. I tell him I was just mucking around. He calls me a fucking thief, and I reply that I wasn’t nicking it. He looks at me and wonders if I’m asking for a fight, I laugh and say smile. He hits me. He really is as athletic as he looks as I admire his muscle tone from the floor, on my backside. I just have to break out into laughter, his boot merges with my face, causing more hysterics. Feeling that he’s proved his point he walks away. A trail of blood fading from his footsteps. Both of our points proven, I stay away from him. But not too far away.

I can feel myself losing control of body and mind. I can feel it this time, aware in time to act. I pull the rope to bring myself back in, until the consciousness control is knocked back into me by the bump of my back hitting the wall.

But now it’s time, time to head off. You can only avoid something for so long.

I get into my plane. It’s always weird, this. Everything about it is so uncomfortable, everything is ungraceful. Visibility is poor, it jerks up and down, the actual flying experience is so sickening, the whole thing is so unstable, yet when you watch an aircraft fly overhead, everything about it is so ‘wow!’ What can you do about it? The image of it alone is enough to draw anyone in. It just seems so gloriously romantic.

By now I’m taxiing towards the runway, having done the old chocks away bit. I speed up, then the dreaded moment. It never, ever feels like you’re going to take off as you pull up on the joystick. Downward momentum always has a sudden pull, and there is that frightening moment when it seems you’re going to stay downwards, but you have to be strong, make sure it doesn’t. Then I’m in the air, flying away from the airfield, over buildings, over more fields, roads, all interconnecting and you get to see just how everything does. 

You, Holly, grab my arm. We’re off on our journey through the maze. I’ve always loved looking at your face, I never really get the chance. We’ve not even met yet, you and I, not properly. I love your face, but with this running, I don’t get a proper chance to admire it, still, it doesn’t matter, it’s one of the least pressing things on my mind right now. We’ve got a job to do, And we’re doing it together. It always surprises me when we meet this way, because, like I said, we’ve never actually met. 

We’re running through the maze, aware that we’ve only got one hour to get to the end, that we can only get lost twice and be helped twice, but re-starting from the beginning. This means that without getting lost, it should only take us about twenty minutes to finish this race together. It’s not a traditional maze with hedges, instead the walls are made of bright man-made fibres and wood, and it’s great. 

We run into a slightly more open area, around us there are a number of exits, and they lead out onto the floor below, which is what our level is raised above. Yet these exits have no means of access down to the floor below. It’s too far to jump. We think we’re lost, but before we do anything, I go right up to one of the edges to check it out. It is a long way down, but obscured from view, without actually really hunting it out, is a steep ramp, almost like a ladder as it has rungs on it, which leads downwards. 

So we go down onto the pebbled floor. Second stage now. We need to find the right pebble. We have a picture of it and already we can see loads of people who were here before us trying to find it. We hunt and almost immediately we find it. It cannot be that easy, we check it with the diagram and, yes, it does seem to be right. The disfigured image of Chaplin is there, the shape is right, but the Chaplin image does not seem right, not as real as on the picture. It’s not Chaplin, but that’s what it looks like to me. 

We decide to go ahead with it, and carry on. We now have to get back up. It’s a bit of a climb, but we do it. It’s now a race to the end, and we get there, but we’re not the first, we’re second or third. But it doesn’t matter we’re both just so happy right now, and nothing could be better. And then one of the alien craft almost hits me as it flies by. 

One of these craft had boomed out a message, asking for an answer to the call yesterday, which was our cue to attack. This immediately brought on a counter attack, which has just resulted in me almost being hit. The sky looks like there’s nothing more harmless than just rain or snow in the sky. It’s jam packed full of flying things and aircraft, it’s just dots everywhere. All around me, our aircraft are falling out of the sky. I fire off a few rounds at one of the flying things, but as soon as it’s in my aim, it’s not there. 

I don’t have a chance at hitting any of them unless I happen to hit one by accident. I’m tempted to just fire off at random and hope for the best, but I do not have the necessary amount of rounds for that, plus I risk the great chance of hitting one of our aircraft. I can see that others are doing that, and are accounting for at least half of our deaths. Why don’t they stop? 

Sensing a movement in the air behind me, I swoop down suddenly. Just as well that I did for where I was, one of the flying things has just passed through that exact same space of air. The git!! He was going to ram straight through me. I can see him turning around now to face me. I start firing at him. Nothing. 

I sweep to my right and, again, he just narrowly misses me. I try to turn my plane around, to get another attack at him, but never before have I realised just how sluggish and slow these machines are. Never before. All it takes is an extremely advanced race of beings with their extremely advanced machines to make you realise just how primitive you are.

All the time there are more of our men coming to our aid. I don’t know where they are all coming from. If it wasn’t for the fact that we are dropping like flies, there would be no room to fly by now. This is the strongest air defence that I’ve ever seen. And yet we still need so much more. 

The advantage of having so many people in the sky is that the flying things are not able to concentrate so much on the individual, just flying around and shooting anything that is not their own. And that is where my attacker has gone. Gone to find somebody else. And I watch him obliterate a plane as it rams through the side. The pilot, completely separated from his plane, has nowhere to go now, except one place. Up to the Heavens, but first he’s got to head down for Hell. 

One of the flying things has just flown down in front of me, but it’s accelerating at such a speed that by the time I react, have pulled the trigger, hoping that he is roughly in my sights and the gun actually firing, he’s dodged out of view. Instead I hit one of our pilots. Well, that’s a notch on the tally, I guess. Only half, though, ‘cos it’s somebody fighting for the same side. 

I just feel so much testosterone in the air, it’s making me feel sick. Everybody trying to be macho, when really everyone is just shit scared. If they weren’t being so macho, they would have had the good sense by now to get out of here, to fly away, admit defeat. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. At this point we do have to fight for our lives, because if they are willing to kill us like they are now, can you imagine how they might treat us if we were to lose this battle? So I guess we can’t run away. 

There will be a great sense of loss after this, but that’s after. Right now we have to just keep plugging on. All of a sudden, we can’t avoid the unavoidable. And this is unavoidable right now. Very much so. 

Yet, I really cannot stand the idea of the phallus. Men are supposed to have the phallus, i.e. penis, whereas women are supposed to be the phallus. Both are sexualised objects. Women are sexualised, fragmented down to their certain parts and men feel that they can have control because they have the penis, whereas women, who feel castrated from an early age, desire the penis because of their ‘Lack’. And so they must chase after the penis, to get the man. Or so according to Freud, who at this point in time is the only real person of any note working in this area. 

Perhaps there will be many more people working to provide different answers, and many will feel Freud’s ideas and attitudes to be full of inaccuracies, to be deemed highly sexist and to be worthy of full psychoanalysis themselves. However, that is not now and this is still the present. 

But like I said, I hate the phallic penis. I hate everything that it is supposed to stand for. Excuse the really bad double entendre, but I really do hate it. It just looks ugly as well, this great object that does not even look good, just tacked onto the body. Mind you they say that Casanova was meant to be a bit ugly. That’s beside the point.

It serves no point in my life except as a vehicle for urine to pass through, and that pretty much sums everything up about it for me. I want love, not sex. I want rid of it.

No, I don’t want, I will. I have a knife in my pocket, I’ll do it now, now, right this very second. I get my knife out, my momentary lapse in concentration almost causing me to crash into another plane. I’m going to have to be careful whilst doing this. Keeping my left hand on my joystick, gosh the innuendoes just go on, but that’s what it’s called, I stab into my groin with my knife. Hacking away. Cutting. Slicing. Stabbing. And there it is. In my hand, but not on my body. 

Fuck, er, shit, I’ve made a hell of a mess down there. A THOUGHT comes to mind. Better stop saying comes. If the hardness is caused by blood rushing to that organ whenever I get sexually excited (rigor mortis now), then next time I do get sexually excited (baring in mind us males are supposed to think about sex every seven seconds or whatever statistic it is), I’m going to bleed to death. Oh dear. 

In a rush, I pull out my heart, and cram it down between my legs. At least I now have an organ that can receive blood and move it on, that’ll stop any major harm coming to me. But I now have a hole where my heart is. Something will need to be done about that. But not now. I have a fantasy about taking the heart from you, Holly, when you die and placing it there in my gap and then your brain, so that you can become a part of me. 

But where could I put your brain? The only place I can think of would be in my stomach. But that’ll have to wait, because I don’t even know you yet, and you are unlikely to die for a long time. Maybe I’ll just take some of your hair, which will be easily dispensed with and place it where my heart originally was. 

But right now, I have to get rid of this once considered phallic organ. It’s simple, I just drop it out of the side of my plane. I watch it drop. It lands directly on the surface of one of the alien flying machines, splattering and causing it to crash down to the floor which is not far below it. 

I cannot help but be aware that I have just committed an act of terrible irony, all to do with military, macho-ism and phallicness. Don’t you just hate when things like that happen? But I’ve dilly dallied to and fro for much too long now. Another alien machine is flying straight towards me. 

It shoots, it scores. My plane is now on fire. I scramble out of the side. Fucking airforce, feeling it would lower morale to not include parachutes. Feeling that it would be much better for us pilots to know that we have a choice, kill or be killed, and go straight in for the kill, and not hang around feeling that we are safe by having parachutes. Fuck you. I now know what is more demoralising. 

I scramble out of my plane. It just feels pointless staying in there. I jump, and there is a tall building nearby which I manage to grab a hold of as I fall down, but my downward momentum is too great. My hands and arms stay momentarily attached to the building before falling, whilst the rest of my body detaches and continues to fall. I somehow manage to grab both my arms with my feet, after having kicked off my shoes and, flapping my arms like mad, I almost start to fly. Or at least I would if I wasn’t going down so fast to begin with. Instead, I just manage to float gently down on to the earth and I land safely. 

Sitting on my backside, I toss one of my arms up into the air using my foot. After a few goes, I manage to perfect the throw so that I can get my arm to insert itself back into its joint. With one arm fully active, I can now pick up the other arm and connect that one to my body. Perfection. 

I notice that I’ve fallen near to where that crashed alien craft is. It seems relatively undamaged, but has not moved. There is just a smear on the surface, which is the only sign that anything happened. 

There are a number of people crowded round it. Pilots, mainly. They’re kicking the machine, hating it violently, vocally. And I really don’t blame them. I move cautiously over to the machine, being more wary than the others. I get the feeling it’s watching me, that its eyes are hovering behind me, watching me move over, watching the others hit the damn thing. I move too cautiously, and by now I have my pistol ready, poised in a state of paranoia, knowing that when I get there, it’s going to jump out at me. Whatever that is inside it. 

I look at the pilots, and I look at myself, all blasted out of the sky. That machine there is the only one out of action and I want to destroy it, to make sure that it never gets the chance to destroy anything ever again. 

I shoot at it, the bullets ricochet back, the pilots all dive for cover, some of them pushing me around, hitting me, punching me for endangering them. I move on, still very cautiously. The only thing endangering them is that. And those above. We don’t stand a chance. I want to destroy that and I want to destroy those. But how? I only have this gun which has proved inefficient. And before that my plane. Which has proved inefficient. Our airforce combined is inefficient. I need a bigger force of weapon. And there is only one. I can use that to destroy those, before destroying that.

I’m still moving on. My progress only halting when I get pushed or hit in the face. But I don’t fear these other men, I only fear that right now. I’m a metre away and I still can’t see any discernible entrance. How can I get in? 

I reach out, feel the machine. There’s a slight crack. I follow the crack around to the front of the machine, where the crack briefly turns into much more of an indentation. My fingers follow it in. 

I’ve been given more space now, the others backing away. They can see me making an entrance. They respect me now, for nothing they can do can compare to what will happen. Plus, they understand. My fear has become their fear. And they, too, reach for their pistols. 

Inside the indentation is a latch. Not designed for human fingers, it is difficult to open, my head and body leaning over the Machine as I try to open it. The door opens upwards hitting me, I fly back, monster jumps out. I shoot, everyone shoots, the monster lands on me, I fight, it submits. Only it hasn’t, because it is a carcass destroyed by the bullets, human bullets as the pilots in a much more dominant position were able to anticipate and fire on impulse exactly when the monster would jump out. I can’t even get an accurate description of what it looks like, unless holes, blood, and decapitated limbs with stringy bits of skin is what makes up these monsters. Probably is.

And now it’s time to get in. The door, still wide open, invites me in. It’s certainly much warmer in here than it is outside. I close the door, noticing that it’s easier to close than to open. I look around, there’s not really much room to look around, but there is so much to look at within it. The chair is incredibly comfortable, as well. No doubt it was intended to be uncomfortable, to keep the pilot on its toes, but not being designed for a human it becomes incredibly comfortable. In front of me is a joystick of some description. In front of me is a panel. It is smooth. There are letters on it. Yet they move around. I punch myself in the head a few times before they stop. They disappear. Very shortly they come back.

It should be very difficult to believe this situation. Here I am sitting in a machine that I have no idea how to work, that looks so complicated, that is futuristic and it’s alien. But it’s not futuristic. It’s now. And this machine is now. It does not look as fantastic as I know it should. It looks normal. It’s only the unknown factor that I can’t understand. How do I get it to fly? How does it fly? It looks nothing like the planes we have, yet it does fly. 

If I look around, nothing actually looks new. There is a seat that I am sitting in. Well, what’s new about that? There are lights flashing. What’s new about that? There are two joysticks in front of me. The only new thing about that is a button on top, which seems very different, but only the context with which the button is now in. But what’s actually new about joysticks or buttons? There are pedals in front of me. I’ve used pedals before. The only thing I’m not sure about are the floating letters, but they seem fixed to that one spot, so that must be some kind of a cinema screen. Again, I’ve been to the pictures. The context is new for everything, but nothing actually seems out of place. 

There is a used feel about this, gives it an identity, an animal identity, not a machine identity, so there is nothing to fear about the machine now that I am in it and not facing it outside. The only thing I do need to fear is how well will I be able to fly this? 

Again, going back to the pictures. I’ve seen Melies’ Voyage to the Moon. That seemed fantastic. Everything actually looked fantastic, but you see it again, and you can see the strings. I bet in the future, more films will be like that. I bet in the future, people will have these. They won’t seem strange or new to them, and so why should it to me? It doesn’t. 

I take control of the joystick. The floating shapes turn into a picture. It’s a bit unclear, but slowly comes into focus. It’s outside. I see. I can see! And I can see how the aliens can see when they’re flying these things. The shapes are still floating along the bottom of the screen, but they cause no distraction. I just hope that the other two flying machines do not come to find their missing friend, because that missing friend is now me. Hello!

It’s very cramped in here. The overall colour is black. But I can see clearly inside. I can see the colour of my uniform, rather than just the vague shape of where my leg should be. There must be a light source in here somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I can see it. 

I take hold of one of the joysticks. I have no idea why there are two, and if I’m holding the right one, let alone even if I need to hold one. But I hold it for support. A familiar feel in this unfamiliar, hopeful flight. 

Holding onto the joystick, actually very tightly, I lightly tap one of the pedals in front of me. Not much. I tap a second pedal, slightly harder. I rise, go fuck, feet panic, fall, hit ground. Fuck. That’s a ‘Fly’ pedal, then, the far left one. I try it again, lightly. The craft rises wobbly into the air. My back is aching now, that landing actually really hurt. I apply a slight bit more pressure, firmer pressure this time; the craft rises a bit faster. Still slowly, mind, but is much steadier in rising. I decrease the pressure. I descend, slowly.

I notice the people outside watching me, my jagged movements in the air. They look old to me. For some reason, everyone looks old to me. I can’t help seeing their grey hair, their decrease in size, but with excess weight. Women with curly white hair. Either very fat or stick thin. Never an in-between. And yet, whenever I look in the mirror, I look exactly the same. My age that I am now. 

They look at me in this machine. They are all pilots and they are envious. It seems funny to think that this machine, which has now become phallicised, was brought down in the first place by a rejection of an object that was also phallicised. Evident in that the remains are still on the outside. 

I note that if I put my foot on the middle pedal, it stops my ascent, or descent and helps me to hover. That’s cool. I take my right foot off the middle pedal and place it on the right pedal. Nothing. I try to hover again. With my left foot on the ‘Hover’ pedal I place my right foot on the final pedal. I zoom off. With a building heading very quickly towards me, I pull on both the joysticks, hoping that they do something. The building passes by, underneath, and I have a very good view of clouds, then some upside down planes, which try to shoot me, and then the floor, and then I seem to be back, upright. 

I let go of the two joysticks, and I take my foot off the accelerator. I’m slowly learning this now. And I hover whilst trying to get this straight. To rise or go down, it’s the ‘Rise’, not ‘Fly’ pedal, as I called it earlier. To hover, it’s the ‘Hover’ pedal, to move forward, it’s the ‘Hover’ pedal and the ‘Accelerator’ pedal. To hover after rising, you slowly have to take your foot off the ‘Rise’ pedal whilst slowly putting pressure on the ‘Hover’ pedal. To move forward, you have to have one foot on the ‘Hover’ pedal and SLOWLY place your foot on the ‘Accelerator’ pedal. 

So, I’m sitting here, hovering, and planes are coming up to me and shooting me. That’s fine, they think I’m a threat, but it’s actually pretty fucking annoying. I’m trying to concentrate here. I take my time, and I will get there in the end, but not while these buffoons are pissing on me. 

But how do I move around? I can go forward, but that’s all. The answer must be in a joystick. Which one, though? There’s two of the fuckers. Bigger one or smaller one? I’ll go for the bigger one. I move off, slowly, the planes following behind me. Holding the bigger joystick, I pull it up. My machine points itself in an upward, diagonal direction, rather than just floating up. I push the joystick forward, my machine points down in a diagonal direction, rather than just floating down. 

I must look like a right tit, here. All those old men outside wondering what the fuck’s going on, probably thinking it normal alien behaviour. Not like the aliens in your day, eh? 

Level again, I pull the stick to my right and pull up slightly. I turn in a wide arc to my right. Cool, so now I can fly anywhere that’s not in a north-westerly direction. That’s nice to know. 

The second joystick must do something. I’m only picking on the most obvious objects at the moment, assuming them to be more important. I’m sure the other switches flashing at me do something, but that’ll come in time. 

Those planes are still flying around me. Pesky buggers. I waggle the second joystick, but very carefully, half-expecting to be suddenly plunged down towards the ground. On the picture of the outside in front of me, a small x starts floating around. Fucking letters and their floating aroundness, what’s the point? I move the stick even more, harder. The x moves around harder. I seem to be controlling it. 

I move the x to a point above one of the planes and press the big button ahead on top. Nothing. There’s another trigger on the side of the stick. I try that. Nothing. I try both. Success! The plane scarpers off in fright after thinking that I just tried to shoot it. The two triggers are obviously some kind of safety device. Cool. 

But I’ve wasted a lot of time. And as I think this, I zoom off, more confidant in what I am doing. I’m heading towards one of the alien ships. I’m getting the x over it, targeting it, which is pretty difficult, as it flies everywhere. All over the place. 

It seems to linger for just an instant, and I spring into action, I just fire like mad, aware that I’ve not targeted properly, but that’s not a problem, as there is just a wall of fire heading out towards it. Fortunately, there are no other planes around. I pray that it’s going to work. The bullets have had no success, so will this? 

The majority of my fire misses completely. I’m still firing away, but a few hit. They make an impact. I keep firing, getting closer all the time, it’s darting all over the place, not sure what’s going on. A couple more hit. A significant difference, as there is smoke now rising from a hole. I fire more. Kaboom, success! I’ve caused an internal explosion. A significant part of it has blown off. It’s going down. 

But this does not stop me. I want to make sure. I really want to make sure. I keep firing, getting dangerously close now that it seems to have stalled mid-air before it’s descent, and I keep firing until, just metres away, I pull up and over. I turn quickly. 

It’s tried to get a shot out at me. Pretty fucking good shot, as it just narrowly misses. But that’s all it can manage. I hover, watch it go down. There’s another explosion mid-descent. And I pray that’s going to be enough to destroy it completely.

The cloud of dust obscures its impact with the ground. And I still pray that that is more than enough to put it out of action forever. 

There is still another machine, somewhere. Where? It’s sussed me out. It’s coming towards me and I fly towards it, but I’m firing away, just as before, and this is the scariest game of chicken that I have ever played. I feel like a space-cowboy at high noon. 

I’m darting all over the place, because I know that there is no way that it’s not going to fire at me. But it’s unsure and does not want to fire at me until it knows I’m a threat. It still thinks I’m its friend. But me firing is enough to get it firing, both of us dodging bullets, firing at each other, flying towards each other. We zoom by, turn drastically, but it manages to turn faster than me. 

There are planes all over the place, firing at both of us. Again, we’re zooming erratically towards each other. The sky is alive. All I’m doing is just waggling both joysticks at the same time. How the fuck is this going to end? 

I manage to hit it just once, but minor damage. Again, we fly by and turn. The turns are long and slow, which gives us plenty of room to get another run. Another run, and planes are still shooting the fuck. This time the run is shorter. It’s decreasing every time. 

Again we fly by, I turn, but this time I manage to have turned quicker and I have time to target. But something’s wrong, there’s a fire in the sky. A plane is going down. Stupid fucker got in the way. Someone got in the way and got hit by alien-freak. 

I capitalise on this dreadful mistake. Although alien-boy is unharmed, this has caught it off guard and has given me time to start firing away. It’s relatively close, so I can get an easier aim. 

I score a couple of hits, but it’s turned and is firing at me. I’m dodging again. But he’s coming slower, and his dodges are less quick, meaning that he gets hit again. And as we fly by, there is a sudden jerk of my machine. It’s caused by an explosion in the other, and after I correct myself and turn, I can see him going down. I chase his descent down and I’m firing away, scoring many hits. That is one obliterated motherfucker. 

There are no others. There were only three, and I’m in the third. But that’s how powerful they were, that they destroyed half of our airforce with just three machines. 

I land my machine by the one I’ve just destroyed. I get out and run over. It’s on fire. I can see the alien getting out of the machine. I fire my pistol, square in its head. It’s dead. To make sure, I pick up a large piece of rubble and smash the remains of its head in. I want to make sure. I get to where the other one crashed, about a mile away. I tentatively touch the machine, as there are still some small fires. It’s relatively cool. I open the hatch. There was a massive fire inside. It’s dead. Melted into the seat. No one will be able to use that machine. As with both of them, there’s not exactly much to use, anyway. 

There are still many planes in the air, unsure of what to do. I seem to have taken control of situation, but I can’t tell them what to do. Because I simply cannot tell them what to do. I would say it’s best they stayed, but after seeing the destruction just caused, if any more came down, they would not be able to do anything. I suppose I should stay. But if any more come, how much longer would I last? I just got lucky and was able to take them off guard. 

I’m aware that the planes still think I’m a threat. There is only one thing for me to do. I get into my machine, and head off into the sky, as high as I feel would look good, making it look like I, as an alien, am scarpering. I stop when I feel high enough, which is pretty fucking high. I can see all of London, I can even see Wycombe from here, which is where I’m headed. To report back to base.