The two armies were probably under a mile away from me. They were not fighting directly, but they were clearly preparing for war.


    <I think it’s time for me to show you some of the spoils from our chase around the city,> Samantha said, summoning a flying car out of her Interdimensional Pouch.


    Now that I could see the outside of it clearly, I knew that flying car was extremely inaccurate, since it didn’t even have wheels.  It also didn’t have the wingspan anywhere near that of a traditional plane, so it didn’t seem right to call it a plane either.


    It really looked more like a traditional UFO than anything else, a sphere on the inside that could fit two people, and a rim that reminded me of Uranus’ rings  running along the outside, likely functioning as some kind of stabilizers.


    You stole another one? Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.


    <I figured it would be the easiest way to get to the Imperial camp,> Samantha said, smiling to herself. <And I’ve been itching for another dog fight. This time, I’ll explain how to fly the Aviaton as we go.>


    The top half of the sphere of the UFO—Aviaton, as Samantha called it—slid open silently, and Samantha climbed inside, letting the ceiling close in above us.


    It had been impossible to see through the Aviaton’s material from the outside, but once inside, I had a 360 degree view around me.


    To my surprise, the controls in this Aviaton didn’t look nearly as complicated as the ones in the plane Samantha had been flying previously.


    <The first thing to know,> Samantha said, she strapped herself in to the leathery seat, <Is that there are two modes to flying an Aviaton. Think of it like Manual and Automatic.> Samantha pushed a button on the control panel in front of us, and then the flat panel in front of us opened up to reveal a daunting, yet familiar, cluster of controls.


    <Flying manually requires greatly elevated Dexterity, which is prohibitive for a lot of people, so they choose to fly automatic,> Samantah continued, as her—my—fingers moved swiftly on the newly exposed controls, almost caressing them as I could feel the mana coursing through the Aviaton.


    <I’m guessing you also saw the benefits of manually flying, earlier,> Samantha said. <Think of flying like typing.  Your index fingers will always align at the center of the panel. Left index controls altitude, right index controls forward and backward acceleration and deceleration, right thumb controls side to side movements, left thumb on round sphere controls aiming and firing the Mana Cannon.  That’s the core of what you need to know. The other fingers focus on stabilizing the plane, refocusing the shield in specific areas if you’re going to take a hit, and so on.>


    Once the Mana Shield was wrapped around us, Samantha lifted us off the ground, allowing us to float just feet above the ground.  <One of the core runes on an Aviaton is the Antigravity runes,> Samantha said. <This enables us to just float in one place, like so.  It also facilitates all kinds of more eccentric movement, compared to what you are accustomed to with cars and planes.  An Aviaton doesn’t rely on forward movement to stay in the air.>


    Samantha took off sideways, jolting our body against the harness.   <The jerk is definitely something to get used to,> Samantha said.  I could hear her smile, and her enthusiasm.


    Off in the distance, I could see several Aviatons from the Metan army flying over towards us.


    <When you’re flying an Aviaton, especially since we have Mana Sensing, it’s good for us to no longer think about things like forwards, backwards, left, and right,> Samantha said, banking the Aviaton abruptly and looping in incredibly tight spirals, rising up and down seemingly at random.  I noticed that some smoke was trailing out of our plane, creating a huge, eye-catching pillar hundreds of feet tall.  <That kind of thinking can be limiting. It’s best to think in cardinal directions—North, South, East, and West.  Focus on Mana Sensing as your primary way to gather information, and use your eyes as a supplement.>This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    I could barely see anything; the world was just a blur. I still could tell, though, that we weren’t going anywhere, and a dozen Metan Aviatons were circling around us.


    They were designed almost identically to our own flying UFO.


    “Unidentified Aviaton, this is restricted airspace. We will open fire in three seconds, unless you land immediately and lower your shields.” The voice came from the console in front of me.


    Samantha made no effort to respond, continuing to fly in a strange, spiraling pattern.


    Then, I saw my left thumb twitch.


    Three shots, one right after another, all targeting the same Aviaton, the Aviaton closest to us.


    The Aviaton swerved to avoid the first shot, but it put him directly in the path of the next two.


    The first destroyed the Aviaton’s shield, and the second left the Aviaton a smoldering wreck.


    All eleven remaining Aviatons opened fire at the same time.


    Samantha had been spiraling up frantically, when she fired at the Aviaton, which left her higher than any of the other Metan planes.


    When the Avaitons opened fire, Samantha was already dodging, falling down into the massive cloud of smoke that she had created, falling sideways, with the stabilizing ring that surrounded the cockpit pointing straight at the ground.


    Then, with a slight change of direction, Samantha fired the Mana Cannon once and then drove the Aviaton directly into another Aviaton, shredding the cockpit easily.


    Cannon fire peppered around us, but Samantha was already moving quickly, weaving between the various blasts of mana energy and closing towards the nearest Aviatons.


    The other Aviatons backed up, and I could see another fleet of twelve planes approaching us.


    Samantha fired her mana cannon twice, once again perfectly predicting the path of the nearest Aviaton. One shot to take down the shield, one shot to destroy the cockpit.


    <Three down,> Samantha said.


    We were flying in randomized patterns, painting smoke clouds in the air.  I noticed, though, that it wasn’t just smoke that was trailing behind us. There were traces of mana in the smoke, likely intended to help mask mana signatures.


    The other Aviatons retreated even further, but Samantha chased them, refusing to let them distance themselves from us.


    Two more cannon pulses, and another Aviaton crashed.


    At this point, I was starting to wonder what the Metan pilots were doing. It felt like the space battle scenes in any science fiction movie, where the protagonist is able to run rings around the enemy mooks.


    Is this the storm trooper effect in action? I couldn’t help but wonder, as I watched every single shot fired by the Aviatons go astray, and a fifth Aviaton crashed to the ground.


    By this point, the other twelve Aviatons had already surrounded us at a much greater distance.


    There was something odd, about their locations. The remaining original Aviatons had stopped retreating, and the twelve Aviatons farther away from us were positioned in an almost perfect, twelve-pointed circle.


    Samantha rammed the side of our Aviaton into another plane, shattering its cockpit, eliminating a sixth Aviaton in this dogfight.


    I think they’re doing something, I said, somewhat feebly, as I watched the twelve planes hovering at very precise intervals around our location, tracking us almost perfectly so that our Aviaton was always in the middle of the circle.


    <It’s a Containment Array,> Samantha said. <Don’t worry, they need another two seconds to power it up.>


    I saw Samantha’s thumb twitch again, and another Aviaton crashed to the ground. Seven down.


    I could feel the ambient mana around the twelve Aviatons gathering, almost in the same way that a sorcerer’s chant would gather magic.  Just as the mana was gathering to a crescendo, Samantha fired the mana cannon three times in rapid succession.


    I noticed that for the first time during this whole dog fight, she had even allowed herself to move in a normal, straight line, as she fired those three shots.


    To my surprise, I saw that each mana cannon pulse flew to a different target—over a thousand yards away, each one targeting a different Aviaton that was trying to form the Containment Array.


    Once the three shots were released, Samantha immediately resumed her frantic flying, looping around suddenly and firing again, eliminating an eighth enemy.


    Meanwhile, with my focus on the distant Aviatons, I saw that for a split second, each individual Aviaton’s Mana Shield disappeared, spreading instead to form a larger Mana Shield that I could tell would soon surround this whole area.


    But Samantha’s three shots landed on three different Aviatons, in what I assumed was the short split second when they were all unprotected—when the individual Mana Shields were in the process of merging.


    Three Aviatons went down, and the other eight Aviatons immediately canceled the Containment Array.


    At the same time, the nearest Aviatons immediately spread out, traveling at their fastest speed away from Samantha as possible.


    <About time,> Samantha said, as she destroyed another Aviaton. Something told me that she wasn’t referencing the twelve Aviatons that she had destroyed in under a minute.


    No, when I expanded my Mana Sensing, I could see it.


    What I had thought was a building floated up out of the Metan Army’s camp, cutting an unnaturally quick pace as it flew towards our Aviaton.


    There is always a bigger fish, I thought, grimly. I wish I could take credit for that line.