He forgot about Benj.
The black ship came hurtling out of the fog just a few feet to his right.
Before, they had been approaching on an angle, which had given both men time to turn. But now they were approaching dead on at better than six hundred miles per hour each. They zoomed out of the fog brushed wingtips and were gone into the fog again, but not without damage. At their velocity, the contact smashed the wingtips and whirled them slightly around.
Like falling leaves they came down, and before they could strike the ground with killing crashes, they both regained consciousness.
Benj's ship was beyond repair. It fell suddenly, even though Benj struggled with the controls. It hit ground and skidded madly along the murky swamp, throwing gouts of warm water high and shedding its own parts as it slid. It whooshed to a stop, settled a bit into the muddy ground and was silent.
Cal had more luck. By straining the wiring in his ship to the burnout point he fought the even keel back and came down to a slow, side-slippage that propelled him crabwise. He dropped lower and lower, and because there was nothing against which to measure his course, he did not know that he was describing a huge circle. His ship came to ground not more than a half-mile from Benj's demolished ship.