Monday. 5:39 p.m.
All his life, A-Dawg had wanted to be a hero.
Now, his time had come.
Five seconds ago, A-Dawg had been seated squarely in the cockpit of his F-16, guiding it with ease as it knifed through the air.
Then everything changed.
The enemy plane came out of nowhere. A-Dawg reacted on pure instinct. The missile clipped his wing as he pulled up hard on the yoke and rolled into an inverted dive that flipped the horizon over, putting the buildings above and the sky below and turning his whole world upside down.
The daredevil maneuver worked. When he straightened out, he’d lost his pursuer.
He was trailing smoke and leaking fuel. He checked his gauges. If he tucked his tail and ran away, he’d have just enough juice to make it back to base.
Or he could make the ultimate sacrifice and do what had to be done.
He glanced at a photo of his dog, tucked into the instrument panel. The dog gazed back, loyal, proud, and brave. Maybe it was his mind playing tricks, the G forces sloshing his brain around, but A-Dawg was sure he saw his dog nod.
A-Dawg knew what he had to do.
He banked sharply and swung back into the fight. He was face-to-face with the enemy plane across a three-mile gap, on a collision course and closing fast. He brought the crosshairs into focus on his target. A tone sounded: radar lock.
Then a voice crackled in his headset. “Okay, hotshot, time’s up. Bring it in.”
“Not yet. I have a job to do.”
“You know the rules.”
A-Dawg knew the rules. But today, the rules went out the window.
His glove tightened on the stick. His thumb brushed the red firing button.
The other plane fired first.
“FIRE!” A-Dawg stabbed his thumb down. His airplane shook as a missile leapt off the wing, riding a trail of flame. A-Dawg banked away, straining to see behind him. Did he get the job done? Was he about to be a hero?
He twisted in the cockpit, desperate to see what happened.
And then everything went black.