and snacks which he threw near the padded chair he knew so well. This time called for a special pre-mission brief, in which the avatars of the oth- er pilots all appeared; this told him something different was in the works. A briefer told them about the naval relief force headed to Cordova, but to Brody it was an Imperial Japanese task force sent to rescue trapped troops at Guadalcanal. His job was to damage or sink one of the fast transports and ignore any escorts since the transports were more valuable. He noted they expected two or more escorts but again, his mission was not them; he would be flying an SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber today with three other dive bombers under his immediate command. He gave his three subordi- nates a quick pep talk and then told them to stay close and confine their attacks as directed. He knew these faces and had flown with them before. He wondered how many of these pilots were also in high school like him, but he didn’t mention it; that sounded like something a newb would prat- tle on about, nothing a seasoned pro would bother to ask. After his usual prep, they got airborne and formed up; he did his customary radio checks and then led the foursome towards the target, which he got targeting data from Kontrol – he did not himself know where they were. The formation showed near 2/3 fuel when they arrived near the location, which worried him — this was a much longer mission than normal and it was a sea ren- dezvous without clear landmarks. Finally, Kontrol advised him a direction after losing contact briefly, during which time they simply loitered in the usual lazy-8’s until regaining a connection but approaching “bingo” fuel. A distant object spotted, he decided on low altitude and went to full power; the dive bomber surged forward and according to his information, he car- ried rockets to mark the target since he was the lead aircraft. This meant he would not actually dive over it, and Brody was fine with that, since the diving part was difficult under normal circumstances. Brody had no idea that the real SBD-5 Dauntless from World War II did not carry rockets but again, the game was never so focused on accura- cy as experience or gameplay – call it gaming’s version of poetic license. He rolled in on this prey — a sleek greyish silhouette making 18 knots according to his information — lined up his rockets while dodging base- ball-sized red-hot anti-aircraft fire that zipped past him and once he got as
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