The next two seconds felt like an eternity. In the vastness of space both his fighter and the missile were pinpoints. Even the enemy destroyer sized ships could barely be seen this soon after flying away from them. Cam’s only indication that they still existed were not his visual sensors, but his heads up display, showing where each ship was located. The Engra lay ahead, large enough to see at this distance, but still a speck in the cosmic distances. Cam’s fighter had reached almost one and a half kilometers a second. Fast for a battlefield, but slow enough that it would take years to travel to the next planet in a any given star system. His acceleration was next to nothing but he was still technically speeding up. He could only watch as the missile came closer and closer and then...it just died off.

“Alright!” Will shouted. “Form up! We got far too much company to be sitting around.”

“What the hell happened?” Cam asked, dropping his extra speed and bringing his ship around. He was thankful to be sure, but had trouble piecing the puzzle together.

“Missiles have a maximum flight range,” Will answered. “They just putter out when they hit it. I figured the one chasing you had to be near it. It was the best shot.”

“Huh. You’d think they’d self destruct when they reached that,” Cam said, as he slid his ship into formation. “Not that I’m complaining.”

His shields were already regenerating, but slowly. It was only at five percent so far. His armor though he couldn’t repair. With proper facilities it would be easy, but he didn’t have the tools here in space. A lot had happened in the last minute or so. Cam’s drones had tagged the other two destroyers in hopes that he could get some easy experience off of them and then returned. It had worked and he had three destroyer kills in his combat logs. The first one gave him far more experience than the ones he just tagged, but even then they were a significant amount of experience. He had missed the notifications during the flight away from the missiles, along with another host of notifications about skill gains.

Skill Up! Evasive Maneuvers I Max acceleration increase by 2% Skill Up! Shield Function I Shield Recharge Rate increased by 2% Skill Up! Small Projectile Turrets I Small Projectile turret damage increased by 2% Skill Up! Small Energy Turrets I Small Energy turret damage increased by 2% Level Up! (x8) You are now Level 15 You have skill points to distribute Skill Up! Motion Tracking I Moving target penalty reduced by 1% Skill Up! Small Ship Drones II Small Ship Drone movement speed increased by 1%/Damage increased by 2% Skill Up! Drone Command I Increase control over drones. 1% reduction to Psi Energy needed for drones. Level Up! (x2) You are now Level 17 You have skill points to distribute Level Up! (x3) You are now Level 20 You have skill points to distribute Skill Up! Velocity Control Max speed increased by 2%

And just like that he had almost tripled his level as well as gained a smattering of skills. Not bad all things considered. Level twenty one was still extremely low, but it wasn’t bad for less than an hours work. He knew he had Will to thank. He suspected the average new pilot wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a battle like this.

He glanced over his character stats at the same time. His fatigue was up to twenty percent. His health had regenerated to full thanks to the health pack. He had also gained some attributes. Apparently every few levels they gained a point or so. He had seventy points to spend so he dumped twenty more points into Endurance. He did not want fatigue to become a factor in the battle. He put ten points into Dexterity and another ten into Willpower. The drone skills looked to be based on mostly willpower, with a bit of intellect and Intuition mixed in. He’d rather put a few points in willpower now, since using the ship drones had earned him six levels so far. He put five more in Intuition and held onto the rest to figure out skills he might want later.

“I got two levels from one destroyer and three from another,” he said out loud in his channel with Will. “Both I just tagged with my drones.”

“The amount of experience depends on the player levels on those ships. Higher player levels means tougher kills so you get more,” Will answered.

“So what now?” Cam asked. Their flight was back in drill formation, along with most of the other pilots. Will took a moment to survey the situation. A lot had changed in their run from the missiles. There were now over two dozen enemy ships on the battlefield that were destroyer class or larger. The Engra was only surviving because it had nestled itself near a huge asteroid on the edge of the asteroid field that provided it cover. A few enemy wrecks lined the horizon where they had tried to come around, but the asteroid had no shields so the enemy ships had started blasting away at it. It would last maybe a couple minutes with what was being pounded into it. Nothing on the enemy size could match the Engra one on one, but the sheer number of ships would quickly overwhelm it once its cover was gone. Four of the enemy ships on the field were battlecruisers, plus the one that was stranded in the asteroid field. Those alone would bring the battleship down. It looked like they were in a losing battle.

Even in such circumstances, the idea was to take as many enemies down with you. In games like The Celestial Void wars were fought to attrition. Making ships took time and resources. They could only get replaced so fast. If a pilot knew he was going down, his goal was to take out as many enemy resources as possible. Hopefully more than his ship was worth. Cam wasn’t sure what the Engra was worth in a game like this, but battleships were among the largest spacecraft possible in Void. They’d have to take down a lot of enemy ships to win the economic war.

“We hold back,” Will answered, addressing all three squadrons. “Look for targets of opportunity. If we can get some easy xp for ourselves and Cam that’s a plus, but right now we don’t want to suffer more losses.”

Between all three squadrons they had lost two fighters to the missiles. A few other ships were damaged like Cam’s, but most took only surface damage. It was definitely worth the cost to take down the enemy ships. The destroyers had fired a salvo on each squadron. Blue suffered both of the losses as they were deeper into enemy engagement zone when the salvo directed at them was launched.

“What about the damaged Battlecruiser?” Tophet asked. Her ship looked unscathed. Apparently she had shot down the last missile without taking any damage. “Easy pickings there.”

“Let’s take a swing at it,” Will answered almost immediately. “One pass, if we can’t break its shields we’ll come back here. Trust me when I say we don’t want to waste much time.”

“Sounds like a free lunch to me,” came a new voice. Cam’s display indicated it was the leader of Gold squadron.

“And you’re never one to give up a meal, even if it’s virtual,” said a female voice. That one was the leader of Blue squadron.

“Hey, virtual food is tasty,” said Gold leader. “Especially since you don’t have to worry about putting on the pounds.”

“You sound like a teenage girl,” said Blue leader, which got a laugh from everywhere.

The three squadrons turned to their new target while Will communicated their plan with the officers on the Engra. They again came in at an angle that kept their angular velocity high relative to the battlecruiser. This seemed like it would be much easier. No support ships dared jump in where it arrived at the asteroid field. The rest of the Aluvius fleet seemed to count the asteroid field as an effective barrier to prevent the Engra from leaving that way. The battlecruiser was written off as a loss already.

All nine drills that made up the three squadrons flew in on separate trajectories. The battlecruiser would have little that would be able to track the small ships. It was another Ichen class battlecruiser. It was designed to hit large ships, not ones a fraction of its size. Its main weapon pointed down its nose. Still there was some risk. Some smaller weaponry could get a lucky shot, so it was best to not give them one big easy target to point it at.

A few shots went off from some turrets, but they went wide against the fighters. The asteroids provided them some cover as they came in.. The drill leaders also kept their movements random enough that it was tough to predict their path and aim fast enough to catch them. Cam opened fire as soon as Will did, and the drill flattened out to allow every ship an angle to fire. Cam’s first few shots did little damage. Will’s skills were obviously better to let him hit at that range. Probably had far better equipment on his fighter as well. Cam’s weapons were shooting well into their falloff range, which reduced their effectiveness. But only a few moments later they were at their full effectiveness. The fighters closed into optimal range by then. The shields started to drop, but slowly. It was obvious that the crew had diverted as much power as possible to their shields. Still the nine flights were slowly grinding it down.

“Keep orbit, spread out altitude and watch your fire,” Will commanded.

Instead of slingshotting back to the Engra immediately, it looked like it was worth a few seconds to make sure the battlecruiser went down. Each flight orbited at its own distance from the battlecruiser--the altitude that Will had mentioned. Theoretically the orbits were large enough that no flights should run into each other but it was better safe than sorry. The lead pilot of each flight had to keep some randomness in their motion or else the battlecruiser’s gunners would be able to predict where they would fly by.

It took two full orbits before the shields went down. Cam did less damage per shot than against the destroyer. Either the larger ship had better natural weapon resists or there were better players onboard. He had no way to tell which it was. After the shields dropped it was quick work to eat through the armor and damage the hull. The last few shots were taken as they were leaving by the pilots who could hit from a larger distance. The explosion was magnificent to behold, and Cam was glad they had broken orbit before it happened. Shrapnel flew off in all directions fast enough that it could do damage.

Cam wondered how long the game would track each piece. It the real world such debris could impact far away locations in the solar system, but that was a lot of processing power to use on every little piece of debris.

He checked out the new notifications as they flew back to the Engra. There were only two but one was nice and the other amazing.

Skill Up! Impact targeting Damage with all ship weapons increased by 2% Level Up! (x15) You are now Level 35 You have skill points to distribute

Again he jumped up in levels. He gained more in the one kill than he had for all three of the destroyers. He wondered how that worked. Will said something about the more damage he did the more experience he could earn. A battlecruiser was a huge ship, but it was already damaged before the squadrons hit it and Cam was just one of more than fifty pilots who had finished it off.

How many levels would he have gained if he had killed something like that solo?

Will was over level one thousand. How did the average pilot compare to that? He knew Will was always good at finding the best ways to get experience in these kinds of games. He was probably a level above the rest. In any case, level thirty five was a huge jump, but it was still just the start.

He was torn between spending all the points now and waiting until later to research which skills were best to get. He had a hundred points to spend. It seemed like a ton at the moment, but he knew he had to think long term. He had upped some of his stats already. A hundred points might not be much, but the last thing he wanted was to find out he spent them unwisely. He decided to hold onto them for now. He was here to farm experience, not be the most effective pilot on the battlefield. Might as well save them until he can find the best use for them.

As they were approaching the battleship Cam saw several flashes of light that indicated ships were jumping in.

“That’s our cue folks. Timer is now running,” Will said. “Stick with the Engra and defend against any enemy fighters. We’ll also be trying to slow any enemy ships that advance too quickly.”

The asteroid that the Engra was hiding behind was still there, but it had been torn apart on the far side. It looked ready to break apart at a sneeze. It was still large enough to provide ample cover, but even the side nearest the battleship had some pieces breaking apart. The ship had to watch out for anything too large or too fast that could hurt it. The flashes of light from the moment before were spread far enough that more than one must have an angle on the poor battleship. Cam hoped it would be able to pick them off fast enough, although with how many ships were out there he knew no one was getting out of here alive.

And then he spotted what Will had known all along.

“Wait. Those are friendlies,” he said.

That got a small chuckle from the other pilots. Apparently they had known about it too.

“Can’t have a trap without some tempting bait,” Will answered. “We jumped the Engra here because that fleet could make the jump here and assist. That’s one of two reasons why I chose this location.”

“And the second?” Cam asked.

“Hey rookie, he can’t give away all his secrets,” came a new masculine voice. The display said he was in Cam’s drill.

“Watch it, Lant,” Will said. “If we’re not careful Calvara will pass all of us. He was being kind to give us all a year head start.”

“Drone Boy will pass us all?” Lant said laughing. “Maybe if we all stop playing.”

“Two months,” said Will. “Two months before he’s considered elite with the rest of us or I’ll buy you a officer class frigate.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“And if you win?” asked Lant. “What’s the catch?”

Cam could hear the nervousness in Lant’s voice. Officer class was probably the most expensive a ship could get. Lant knew Will was serious with the bet.

“If I’m right, then you’ll fly as Cam’s wingman for three months.”

“Hey can the rest of us get on that deal?” said another voice.

As they arrived back at the Engra several other voices clamored in agreement. Will had to impose order again.

“Check comms people,” he said simply. That got everyone quiet. “This deal is for Lant. You can’t all be Cam’s wingman. Besides, I learned this next move from Cam himself.”

“Wait, what?” Cam asked. “What move?”

“The second reason we came here,” Will answered. Cam could tell he was enjoying the moment.

A small wave a dread washed over Cam. Now that Will had mentioned it the scenario before him looked familiar. Different in circumstances, but similar in the layout. As if reading his mind, Will confirmed it.

“Remember Pantanda?” he asked.

Cam groaned. In space trajectories began to appear for him and the rest of the squad. Will was organizing their next moves even while the conversation was ongoing. Everyone started moving in their assigned directions. Two of the enemy ships that had jumped in recently were carrier class ships. These two were smaller than the Engra, but each had released a complement of fighters and other small craft that would easily outmatch the Engra’s three squads of fighters. Those ships were coming around the edge of the asteroid to engage the squadrons and maybe put the hurt on the Engra itself.

The allied ships out there were not enough to engage the entire enemy fleet themselves but they were enough to force them to divide their attention, and far enough away to force them to make a choice. Either push towards the large asteroid they had been firing on or spread out into space hoping for a good catch. The first would group them up and maybe bag the Engra itself. The second would leave them vulnerable to the battleship’s guns the moment it peeked out from behind the asteroid.

The choice was simple and Cam could already see the enemy fleet moving towards the asteroid behind the line of their fighters and small craft.

“Pantanda was a defeat,” Cam said.

“Defeat doesn’t mean failure,” Will countered.

Cam sighed--or again whatever the mental equivalent of that was in I-Flight--at that, but he couldn’t argue. The operation had been considered a success even if they lost every reason they had to stay at Pantanda. They had let the enemy take it afterwards in pyrrhic victory. The war had ended soon after when the enemy realized the extent to the losses it had taken and the cost it would take to continue its campaign. The scope of this fight was much smaller, but Cam could see the pieces moving in place.

The squads formed up for the enemy’s attack. The nine drills spread out along the defending edge of the asteroid. The enemy fighters were similarly organized. All the Codiem Caelestis pilots needed to do was to slow them down and take down who they could.

But the enemy had more than just fighters in the formations. Each squad of enemy fighters had three corvette class ships and one frigate. Those were slower than the fighters, but had the firepower to more than hold their own against them. They were just the thing to counter fighter formations.

However they had to watch out for the battleship. The Engra was moving away from the edge of the asteroid the enemy was coming around, but it still maintained line of sight. Corvettes and frigates would be hard for it to hit, but its guns could land a shot if they moved too slow or predictably.

“This is it,” Will said. “Engage and hold. Our goal is to keep them on this side of the rock and not let them get too close to the Engra.”

“Self preservation?” asked Tophet, referring to how much or little risk they should take with their lives to accomplish the goal.

“High at the moment, but it’ll drop.”

That meant they had a few minutes before Will’s plan came to fruition. It made sense as they needed the enemy fleet to move to the right spot for this to work.

The enemy was upon them in moments. The flights engaged along a line to tie up the enemy’s advance. Tophet and Cam pulled back slightly, while Will and the other pilots of their flight engaged the front line. Cam sent one drone ahead to try to tag any fighters Will might take down. He could control all three now that he added points to willpower. It provided him with enough Psi Power. Tophet and Cam were there to watch their backside.

They didn’t have to wait long for the first set to slip through. A flight of three got past the front line. Space was large, and even with an asteroid to use as cover to one side, it was easy for the enemy fighters to slip around. Tophet pushed forward before they could turn and engage Will’s flight from both sides. This was not the time to hold back. Tophet launched one of her FtF missiles at the lead fighter.

Immediately it pulled off to try to avoid it. The other two fighters tried to shoot the missile down. Tophet engaged those two, Cam following her. The missile missed the first fighter on its initial pass, but started coming back around. The fighter pulled back towards the front line, away from the missile.

Tophet dived at the second fighter. Cam put his remaining two drones on it as well and opened fire. In the back of his mind he also controlled the third drone by Will. It was tougher since he was focused on two things at once. Before he had sent simple commands for them to do automatically. Here he was having to actively control the one near Will so that it would change targets at the right time and not get in Will’s way. He was tempted to bring it back to avoid the distraction, but held off for the moment. It was successfully tagging kills for him. The second fighter swung wide in trying to follow Tophet’s missile and shoot it down. That gave Cam and Tophet time to eat through its shields and armor before it could get away. A few more shots breached the hull and caused it to explode.

It must be part of the programming of the game, Cam thought. They had not hit the reactor, but merely disabled the ship. It still blew up anyways in a spectacular fashion. There would still be items that could be salvaged in the wreckage, but it seemed the game liked its explosions.

Cam laughed at the thought. After all if Will’s plan was successful everyone would get to see plenty of explosions soon enough.

They pursued the last ship, but it was close to the front line and they didn’t want to overshoot. They broke its shields, but had to back off before they could pound through its armor. If they had followed it they would be well within the enemy lines before they could finish it off.

Cam glanced at his overview as they pulled back into the support space again. Will had started a timer of sorts. It showed up as a moving engagement zone, which slowly was retreating closer to the Engra. They would have to give ground as the frigates closed in. There was no question of that. The idea was to give it up as slowly as possible. They still needed a few minutes for the enemy to move where they wanted them.

That fleet was still approaching the asteroid. Anything destroyer sized or larger were sticking together in their approach. They would take a few minutes before they could get the angle to fire on the fighter lines and maybe a minute more before they would be able to fire on the Engra. This had turned into a spectacular firefight. Cam was enjoying it. Even in I-Flight he could feel the adrenaline flow through his veins. He still had some kind of connection to his body, he just wasn’t limited by it as he piloted.

A second wave of enemies pushed through the line. The corvettes engaged the front fighters, and the enemy fighters went above. The three dimensional battlefield was not limited by gravity here. The asteroid had almost one to worry about. It made it tough to hold a line. Tophet sped to engage the fighters that came over.

“Missiles free, Flyboy,” she said. “Let’s do some damage.”

“Roger. Let’s do it!”

Neither he nor Tophet fired immediately. They waited until the fighters closed towards them. There were six, all spreading out in pairs to try to get an advantage by exposing a flank. He locked and fired the first missile, and found a second target a second later and launched again. The two fighters swerved, trying to lose the missiles.

Two things happened at once. First, every one of the six fighters launched an FtF missile of their own. He grinned. It was poor tactics. They were all coming from similar angles. The six missiles would be almost as easy to avoid as one. Secondly several red strips appeared in his view space indicating warnings for incoming friendly fire. The actual fire appeared just a couple moments later. A warning system, giving friendly craft just a second to try to get out of the way.

Tophet fired one of her missiles as well. Cam wasn’t sure how many she had in her arsenal, and he didn’t have much time to worry about it. He had ended up slightly closer to the enemy than Tophet, and decided to take advantage of it. He made a small roll that put him between to all the missiles and Tophet for just a second. Hopefully long enough to get all of their attention. No point in both of them having to run.

He saw six confirmed locks on him and dove down towards the asteroid. If he timed it right he would only have to run away for a few seconds. More flashes of friendly fire warnings came across his screen. He thought he knew where the fire was coming from and what they were shooting at.

“You’re going the wrong way, Flyboy!” Tophet shouted.

“I got it!” he said. He knew his path looked odd. The asteroid would limit his movement in just a few seconds, and he was moving in a direction where the missiles would close in faster. He opened fire at the lead missile, but knew he couldn’t kill all six before they reached him. He put that out of his mind, though. That was not his plan.