'Kartik may not last that long!'
Indra's voice was now more even, as if trying to calm Aaditya down.
'I know how you feel, but the two of us will get overwhelmed. There must be more than thirty Asura drones there.'
'Indra, how do I know which are the drones and which the Asuras are piloting?'
He had barely said the words when his display changed slightly to show eight of the red dots glowing.
'Aadi, those are the Asuras.'
The closest red dot was now less than five hundred kilometres away. Indra had slowed down. A dozen blue dots were following them. Aaditya's display told him that they were still ten minutes away. As he saw three more of the Deva drones fall to the Asuras, he decided that those were ten minutes that Kartik did not have the luxury of waiting for.
He saw four drones close in on Kartik from behind even as the young Deva downed one more drone. Aaditya's vimana screamed in towards the melee, firing a volley of four astras at extreme range at the four drones. Three hit while the fourth drone aborted its attack to evade the astra.
'Kartik, don't think you could grab all the kills yourself.'
'Join the party. Hold the drones while I get to the bloody Asuras. As usual, the cowards are holding back.'
Aaditya was now close enough to see the nearest Asura drone. To his surprise, the drone looked just like an F-22 fighter, painted entirely in black. Another drone to his left looked just like a Su-30, again painted in black.
'So that's why they were chasing all those high-performance fighters. They've engineered their drones based on our designs.' Aaditya said to himself.
He moved his vimana right behind the F-22, still using his clenched good luck charm like a joystick. He could see the drone just a kilometre ahead, and as he focused, a red circle appeared on his cockpit screen. He had been trained in using the optically guided aiming system for the vajra by Kartik countless times and now he was putting all those lessons to use.
He moved his head slightly to target the drone, and the red circle followed his gaze. When it was on the drone, Aaditya fired two bursts from his vajra. Blue streaks reached out towards the drone. While the F-22 rolled away from the first streak, the second caught it on the right wing, causing it to explode in a bright fireball and then disappear in a mist of flame and sparks. The Su-30 was trying to get on Aaditya's tail, but he took his vimana into a tight roll that brought the drone right in front of him for a fleeting instant. Another burst from his vajra and the drone exploded. He finally took a look at his display and saw a dozen red dots disappear.
Indra and the reinforcements had arrived.
As Indra and the drones accompanying him cut a swath through the Asura drones, Aaditya saw that Kartik was now headed straight for the Asura vimanas, which had not yet joined the fray. The Asuras fired several missiles at Kartik, but he destroyed a couple with his vajra and evaded the rest. His first volley of astras brought down two Asuras. Aaditya now raced to help him. Kartik had come off on top in the first volley but it was still just him against six Asuras.
One of the Asuras was trying to maneuver behind Kartik when Aaditya caught him with a burst from his vajra, slicing the Asura vimana into two before it exploded. Now with five versus two, and given the huge superiority the Deva vimanas had, the odds were more than evened. Aaditya loosed two astras to destroy another Asura before he saw the red-tipped vimana scream towards Kartik.
'Maya.'
Kartik had just destroyed another Asura and not noticed Maya coming in behind him. Aaditya fired an astra but Maya rolled out of its way, continuing his relentless approach towards Kartik. At less than a thousand yards range, Maya fired two missiles.
'No!'
Aaditya watched in horror as both of them hit Kartik's vimana and the craft briefly glowed bright red before exploding in a huge fireball. Then, as Aaditya had by now seen several times already, the explosion seemed to collapse upon itself till a single, incandescent spark remained. The spark glowed as bright as the morning sun for a moment and then there was nothing.
His mind a red mist of rage, Aaditya closed in on Maya. One of the Asuras was trying to cut him off, but in his anger, Aaditya smothered him with no less than six astras. Maya had seen him, and began a rapid dive towards the ocean. Aaditya was now no more than five hundred feet behind him. He fired two astras, but to his frustration, Maya swerved and evaded both of them. Aaditya realized that in his rage, he was not focusing and was shooting wildly. He stilled his mind and brought up the optical sight for the vajra.
One burst just missed Maya, who by now was moving his vimana in a series of tight turns as he descended towards the ocean in a spiraling dive. The other seemed to have clipped an edge of the saucer shaped vimana, but Maya kept continuing his descent, though he was now wobbling a bit from the near miss.
Aaditya glanced at his display to see that he was no more than three hundred feet above sea level. He slowed down, otherwise he would have slammed into the ocean, and then watched open-mouthed as Maya continued his dive.
Then, in an instant, Maya's escape plan became clear. The water churned as through the blue-white foam a dark shape emerged. Aaditya watched as a giant sphere of some sort emerged and a gap opened in its side where Maya's vimana entered. Aaditya fired several bursts from his astra, watching the blue streaks track in on the giant black submarine. To his chagrin, gun ports on the sub's side spat out streams of red light that intercepted his weapons. Then, as he watched in frustration, the sub slid under the water and disappeared from sight.
Aaditya pulled up from his dive to take stock of the situation. There were no more red dots on his display, but there were also only a handful of blue dots left. Indra pulled up alongside him and he soon heard the Deva over his earpiece.
'Aadi, let's go back. Our work here is done.'
Indra's voice sounded strangely subdued, and Aaditya asked the question on top of his mind.
'Kartik?'
He was met by silence, so he persisted. 'It's only been a few minutes since he was hit. He told me we could recover you Devas if we had a couple of hours. Come on, what can we do?'
Indra was silent, and then he simply said, 'Let's go back. There's nothing more we can do here.'
His was mind in turmoil, rebelling at the thought of abandoning Kartik, yet hoping against hope that the Devas had some solution up their sleeves. Aaditya followed Indra and the remaining drones back to their base.
When they landed, Indra disembarked and walked to the conference room without saying anything to Aaditya. Aaditya found the Devas all silent, staring at the display in front of them. CNN was reporting that there had been at least five thousand confirmed deaths from the tsunami, and the death toll was only likely to rise as the full extent of the disaster revealed itself. Tanya was in a corner, her eyes red, as if she had been crying.
Indra sat down soundlessly next to Shiva, betraying his emotions with a simple touch on Shiva's arm. Shiva just sat there, and as Aaditya entered, for the first time, he thought he saw tears well up in his eyes. Aaditya still did not entirely understand what had happened and still harboured hopes that Kartik could somehow be revived. After all, the Devas seemed to be indestructible, didn't they?
Brahma was the first to speak. 'My heart cries for all the souls lost in Hawaii and for our Kartik.'
Aaditya was still in a daze. 'Kartik told me that Devas had a couple of hours in which they could be revived. Surely you can do something?'
Nobody spoke till Shiva walked up to Aaditya and put his arms around him. 'Thank you for what you did today, and for trying to save Kartik. We are warriors and for us, loss is something we must learn to deal with, but for now, let me go and grieve with Durga for the loss of our son.'
Shiva walked out slowly, and Aaditya felt tears streaming down his face. Having seen the evil that Kalki was capable of, he was now convinced that his father could never have served such a monster. His mind kept replaying the dogfight, wishing he had reached sooner, wishing he had at least managed to destroy Maya when he had the chance.
'We have an incoming audio message.'
Ganesha's words got everyone's attention.
'Play it.'
