left, most of them were ablaze!
43 As the planes returned, they heard a call from one of the pilots.
"Flight Leader, this is Wing Leader Two. I just lost my wing man."
44 "What happened?" the Flight Leader asked.
45 "I don't know," answered the Wing Leader, "all of a sudden he burst
into flames, rolled over, and hit the side of a mountain. He may have
taken some ground fire on the strafing runs. He said he felt something."
46 "Damn!" snapped the Flight leader. It was a sentiment echoed by all
who heard.
47 The planes refueled, rebombed, and attacked the fleeing enemy army
again that day, until their light was gone. They lost no other
aircraft. That evening they counted the results.
48 "We lost one plane," announced Gray Boar, "we have eleven damaged,
one dead, and two wounded. If our calculations are anywheres near
right, the enemy lost three-thousand-two-hundred! One-thousand of those
were these new aircraft like ours.
49 Plus that, we have destroyed at least one thousand truck and maybe
two-hundred-and-fifty tanks. If anyone doubts the abilities
of these planes any more, they're madmen!"
50 "And if we hadn't had them," praised one of the Pilots, "we'd be
dead men! Those enemy planes would have blown us out of the air in our
old ones. You've performed a miracle, you and these beautiful planes!"
51 Gray Boar returned north to a hero's welcome. His factory began
producing Mountain Glory Comets as fast as they could, so did every
other aircraft builder in the Land.
52 For a couple of seasons The Children of Spirit ruled the sky, until
the enemy built a ship equal to The Mountain Glory, but it would be
many, many, seasons before they had radio. So every ship The Children