Bombers are slower than fighters for a simple reason: they haul hundreds of kilos—sometimes tons—of ordnance. You don't outpace a feather-light interceptor while lugging a flying arsenal.
Carrier girls' aircraft follow the same logic. As a rule, fighters outstrip bombers, and carrier-borne bombers rarely mount serious gun armament—their cannons and machine guns are more ornament than edge, unlike on real-world planes.
Airfield Princess had never crossed blades with six-star carrier planes before. One glance now, and the boulder in her chest settled.
Manageable.
Time was tight. With the speed gauged, she had to pick a tactic.
Head-on charge?
No. She vetoed it at once.
A cavalry-style smash would be satisfying, but with relative closure well over 2,000 m/s, she'd barely bring her sights to bear before the enemy scattered like petals and skimmed past her black eagles.
In air-combat terms: the engagement window would be microscopic.
Best play: take the perch—seize altitude, then dive. Trade height for speed, settle onto their six, and run them down.
Textbook, time-tested.
Decision made, she pushed all four hundred black eagles higher, climbing above thirty thousand meters.
She didn't stay idle on the way up. While she climbed, she lanced the bomber phalanx with beam fire—a little greeting.
Those "beams" only looked like lasers; they were nowhere near light-speed. Still, they were viciously fast—easily 10,000 m/s.
They crossed the gap in a blink. Lexington's call came cool and clipped:
"Aileron roll. Evade independently."
An aileron roll spins the craft about its nose-tail axis like a corkscrew.
The carrier planes were hawk- or gull-sized. The beams were no thicker than an arm.
Eight hundred shafts of light bored into the bomber formation—and just as many bored out.
Not a single hit.
The eagles had keen eyes, and through them Airfield Princess saw everything—too clearly.
At hair's-breadth distances, the bombers didn't jink or dive. They held course and speed, each machine executing a knife-edge roll at the last instant to slip every beam by a wing's width. It was artistry. It was obscene.
Her contempt vanished. No more probing shots; they'd be useless.
She leveled her eagles at 33,000 meters, poised to strike.
While she hunted, the carriers weighed her up.
Ranger sniffed, "Country bumpkin. Looks like she's never seen what six-star hero planes can do."
Saratoga preened. "Gear is gear—the real edge is the pilot. That's us."
Lexington sighed. "Don't imitate your brother-in-law's swagger. Eyes up—she'll try a Split-S, then clamp with a squeeze from the flanks."
A Split-S (half-roll with downline) trades altitude for speed and flips heading one-eighty—exactly how you convert potential energy into chase velocity. Even carrier-soul aircraft respect physics.
Airfield Princess would drop from above, roll through, and bite onto the formation's tail.
The squeeze presses from both aft quarters, chewing at the outer ranks to crush the shape inward.
"By-the-book," Taihou murmured. "Pity—she hasn't seen enough of the world."
Down she came—by her own reckoning, the cleanest Split-S of her life, four hundred eagles executing in lockstep.
From 33,000 to 30,000 meters—three thousand meters of potential turned to thrust. They didn't lose speed; they gained it.
She bared her teeth. Now.
With fighter-grade velocity, four hundred black eagles would spear straight through the bomber block, slide shoulder-to-shoulder with those "little darlings," and tear them apart with beaks and talons.
In that heartbeat she wanted to roar:
My fangs are sharp—my claws are keen!
[End of Chapter]