AND THE DAY WAS SAVED...

Calvin brought his proton torpedo targeting program up and locked onto the alien fighter ship. It tried to break the lock, but turbo laser from Calvin’s ship boxed it in. His heads-up display went red and he triggered the torpedo.
The missile shot straight in at the fighter, but the pilot broke hard to port and away, causing the missile to overshoot the target. Nice flying! Calvin couldn’t help but admire his adversary’s presence of mind. He drove on, his ship careening over the alien city, skimming past the growing mass of scores of blob-like creatures gathering on the surface. Calvin had a good mind to start ground-strafing, just to make short work of them all. But he needed to attend to the task at hand. The alien planet’s defense mechanism included an excellently trained fleet of fighter-crafts, efficiently shielding the globe, manning war-formations our hero had never encountered before, let alone knowing how to break their marquee.
Calvin brought his ship over and started down to loop in behind the fighter, but as he did so, his foe vanished from his computer screen and reappeared in his aft arc. Yanking the stick hard to the tight and pulling it back, Calvin wrestled his freighter up and to starboard, then inverted and rolled out to the left.
A laser jolt shot a tremor through his vessel. Lucky, I had all shields aft! Calvin reinforced them with energy form his lasers, not that he wanted to compromise on ammo in this kind of air-battle, especially when he didn’t have any clue whatsoever about the eerie war formations the enemy was forming. Sometimes it’s hard to be a hero- he thought. Saving the world all alone, yet escaping the fame and living with an identity which was non-existent for the rest of the universe wasn’t as glamorous as he’d thought.Calvin evened out his lasers’ power supply. Jinking the fighter right and left, he avoided the jet blasts coming from behind, but they all came in far closer than he liked. Nice bastard. You do fly well.
“Make sure you’re in there solid, because we’re going for a little ride”, he said to his A.I. computer. He refused to let the computer unit’s moan of disapproval slow him down. A snap roll brought the fighter back, up on its port wing. Pulling back on the accelerator shaft, he yanked the fighter’s nose up away from the original line of flight. The fighter stayed with him, and then tightened up on the arc to close distance. Calvin knew, as the laser shots from behind were getting menacingly close as his trajectory’s co-ordinates progressed. Calvin rolled another ninety degrees and continued the turn into a dive. Throttling back, he hung in the dive for three seconds, then hauled back and cruised up into the fighter’s aft.
Calvin’s laser fire missed wide to the right as the alien ship cut to the left. He kicked up his speed to the full and almost broke into hyperdrive. He let his ship rise above the plane, then went into a twisting roll that ate up enough time to bring him again in the enemy’s rear. The alien snapped to the right and Calvin looped out to the left. You see, you bastard. I can fly too.
He watched the tracking displays as the distance between them grew exponentially, and then slowed down. Fine, you want to go nose to nose? I’ve got shields. Let’s see what you’ve got. If the alien wanted to commit suicide, Calvin was happy to oblige him. He tugged the stick back to his sternum and rolled out in an inversion loop. I AM BACK.
The two starfighters closed swiftly. Calvin entered his foe in the crosshairs and waited for a dead shot. Without shields, the alien would die with one burst, and he wanted the kill to be clean. The crosshairs flicked green as the fighter swayed in and out of the center, then locked red as they closed.
The fighter started firing at maximum range and scored hits. At that distance the lasers did no real damage against the shields, prompting Calvin to wonder why the blob of an alien was wasting the energy. Then the crosshairs started to flicker, realization dawned. The bright bursts on the shields are a distraction to my targeting! I better kill him now!
Calvin tightened on his trigger button, sending red laser needles stabbing out at the closing enemy. He couldn’t tell if he had hit. He guessed it was too late. Next thing he knew, his ship was just another mass of rubble with him encased in it. He had been hit. Right on the stern of the ship, and was now hurtling towards the alien planet at an incredible speed. He checked the altimeter. He was losing height fast. The green mass below on the planet seemed to grow as he approached surface. The ground could be seen teeming with scores of blob-like creatures. He was just a streak of light, streaming across the alien skyline. He checked the computer screen. Ten seconds to impact. So is this where it all ends?
10…
9…
8…
“Calvin”
7…
“CALVIN!!”
“SEVEN!!”, he bellowed.
“Thank you Calvin. The answer is 7. Very well dear, I thought you weren’t paying attention”, said the teacher, “Now, class where were we?”Towards the back of the classroom, sat our eleven year old hero, Calvin, with his world of dreams spinning around as steadily as ever. And the day was yet again saved by…