FIRST CONTACT 

In this excerpt, pilots from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force serving as “volunteer” supporters for an Islamic uprising in Tunisia engage Italian F-104s, and are engaged by Lieutenant Renee Patterson and Commander Marissa O’Malley. 

DRAGON ONE 

Chin closed in on the Italian fighter. It would be his third kill of the night. He forced himself to remain calm as he waited for radar lock. This had been much easier than he had anticipated. The Americans had not responded yet. 

He thumbed the laser range-finder in his IRST, and smiled. He waited for a radar lock. These were hardly worthy opponents for him and his Flanker, but he had to destroy them nonetheless. 

Chin took a deep breath, and when the tone signaling he had a radar lock sounded in his earphone, he smiled. (more…)

Let’s just get to where we left off in Part 1.

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5. Star Trek: Generations (1994) – Yes, “Where the hell’s Kirk?” was my mantra through most of the second act, but the Next Generation (TNG) crew got off to a promising start with William Shatner’s Captain Kirk bookending events to graciously hand off the baton. Plot holes riddle the story of Malcolm McDowall’s Soran and his maniacal attempt to return to the Nexus, an energy ribbon with a crack-like addictive ability to deliver its inhabitants into a dream-like nirvana (there had to be easier ways to get in the thing other than blowing up an entire friggin’ planet), but the concept of the Nexus – the idea of choosing between a false perfection and an imperfect reality is Trek at its best, and the scene where Picard enjoys a heart-wrenching Christmas with a family he’ll never have is a franchise high point. The best moments, though, arrive when Kirk and Picard, two Captains wildly different in personality but who share a love called Enterprise, come together to save the Universe. The complaints about Kirk’s death being anti-climatic are valid and the less than iconic setting for the demise of an icon is obviously due to budget and imagination constraints, but for me it works. When heroes fall it’s often in nondescript places we’ve never heard of where a stand has been taken to risk one’s life for those they’ve never met. Kirk may not have been real, but his final moments are. (more…)