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sure that the enemy Rapier overshot her and that she pulled into the requisite
one-eighty to lock on and blow his ass back to that higher plane of existence.
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But Maniac had his own problems, namely a Pilgrim pilot who bore down on him
with wing-mounted laser cannons blazing and neutron gun spinning like a
tornado whose eye blinked white lightning every time it fired.
Sick and tired of these aggressive fanatics, Maniac howled a curse to the
heavens, slammed down the throttle, and went ballistic, waving on the Gs like
an infuriated boxer waves on his opponent. Acceleration dampeners compensated
for some of the force, but he had to focus on his breathing and get his blood
back into his extremities. Three Gs. Four. Four-point-five. His vision grew
dark around the edges. He knew that in a few seconds he would lose
consciousness. He slapped back a toggle, stalling both thrusters, then
manuevering jets fired as he rolled onto his back to face the oncoming
attacker. The Pilgrim apparently had no qualms about playing an old-fashioned
game of chicken. He also had no idea of Maniac's experience with the game,
though the Pilgrim could consult a few Kilrathi pilots who would spin him
quite a tale.
With reckless abandon coursing through his veins, Maniac snap-fired the
thrusters and advanced at full tilt with neutron fire pinging off his canopy
shield like droplets of neon blue jelly. He thumbed off the safety cover on
his secondary weapons button, then closed his left eye, focusing on the
targeting reticle as it swam around the Rapier, then blinked red as he got the
lock. Even as he fired the Dumbfire missile, the Pilgrim liberated one of his
own.
Holding his breath, Maniac rolled ninety degrees, and the enemy missile
glanced his port wing but failed to detonate.
The Pilgrim plunged into a seventy-five-degree dive and swept under Maniac's
Rapier. Though he had evaded Maniac's missile, the Pilgrim had not evaded the
man himself. Not yet. Maniac pulled a hard U-turn and pursued the Rapier,
gritting his teeth as it took agonizing seconds for him to fall squarely in on
the Pilgrim's six o'clock.
"Maniac? Little help here," Zarya said. Static burst through the audio-video
transmission coming from her Rapier as she became a cushion for laser strikes.
That was all it took for Maniac to abandon his pursuit of the Rapier and pull
up her position on his tactical display. "I'll be right there. Hard brake 'em
if you can."
"Roger that. And hey, that troopship's making its final approach. It'll be
aboard theOlympus in a second or two," she said glumly. "Failed that
objective."
"Who cares. Worry about that Rapier on your back."
"Believe me. I'm worrying."
"Five seconds 'till I'm in," he reassured her, stealing glances at his
tactical and radar displays. Twin flashes scaled the void above as someone,
hopefully an enemy, bought the proverbial one-way ticket.
They had rounded the moon and now drew much closer to the supercruiser.
Maniac clearly made out her outline against the ruffled sheet of the moon's
surface. Her four primary antimatter guns swiveled to follow targets and
dispense humbling clouds of anti-starcraft fire. All thirty of her
point-defense missile systems launched Dumbfires at those Rapiers operating
along the rim of the five-hundred-meter gravitic cloak zone. TheOregon and
Mitchell Hammock stood about a quarter kilometer off the super-cruiser's bow
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and stern respectively, taking light fire from a few Pilgrim Rapiers that
strafed their decks. The destroyers hurled anti-cap ship missiles at the
supercruiser, but most of them detonated well short of their targets, cut down
by theOlympus 's unrelenting antimatter guns. Maniac spotted a few missiles
getting through, but the carrier's powerful shields and thick armor could
withstand the pummeling, at least for a little while.
Jinxman's squadron had yet to near the supercruiser, and three of the
Broadswords in his team's escort had been destroyed. Lightning had fared even [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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