The fourth defeat she did not see. News of it came to her through a speaking tube, in a voice that she recognized, a voice that brought a hot flush of anger to her cheeks.
"The squadron leader is dead. He's shot down five machines so far. There's nothing we can do. He keeps outmaneuvering us at every turn. There are eight or ten different ways a really brilliant pilot can hold his own and be more than a match for a whole squadron. He knows all of them."
The gaunt woman slammed the speaking tube down with such violence that it abraded the flesh of her knuckles, causing her to wince in pain.
She steeled herself to endure without complaint what she feared would be coming—the destruction of a sixth machine and a seventh. And after that? There were only nine machines in the squadron.
It was even worse than she had imagined it might be. Two of the four remaining machines were shot down almost simultaneously. She did not see them fall but the two bright flares that lit up the earth far below left no doubt as to what had happened.
Feeling a dull, hollow ache in her chest, she found herself wondering whether the machine in which she sat, would be next, or would tragedy overtake the only other remaining machine first?
She was not left long in doubt. A dull concussion shook the cockpit, and she was thrown violently forward. For an instant a kaleidoscope of changing colors seemed to spin and whirl about her. With the spinning came a dizziness and black nausea clawed at her throat.
She dragged herself to her feet, and clung to the long metal rail on the right side of the cockpit, staring out through a splintered surface of glass at nothing at all.
For a moment nothing and then she saw him. She saw the machine that had outfought and outmaneuvered an entire squadron and in the cockpit a pilot who wore upon his chest the bright insignia of the love-privileged.
She saw the pilot's face.