“Mongoose” Callahan in Raptor 506 wasn’t so lucky. As the Dralthis flashed past Tolwyn’s fighter in tight formation they maintained their fire, battering Callahan’s shields.
“Get ‘em off me!” Callahan shouted.
Tolwyn tried to fall in behind the enemy formation, but they were too maneuverable. His Raptor wasn’t designed for tight turns or fancy maneuvers, and he was just too far out of position to be effective…
Broadsword 206, Guild Squadron “Raider-One”
Jump Point Six, Hellhole System
0828 hours (CST)
Winston Drake saw the four Dralthis attacking the Landreich Raptor, and almost instinctively rolled sideways to line up a shot on the nearest of them. It was only after he’d squeezed the trigger to activate a full-spectrum energy weapon bombardment that the irony of the situation really hit him.
Less than two hours ago he’d been dogfighting with the Landreichers, whose vast superiority in numbers had accounted for nearly half his fellow pilots from Bonadventure. The onslaught had been so fierce that Captain Tanaka had hastily ordered a retreat. Otherwise Drake himself would probably be vapor by now.
Yet with the appearance of the Cats everything had changed. Now the humans were working together, and that Raptor pilot out there who might have accounted for one of Drake’s buddies earlier was now an ally to be saved.
His beam weapons burned through the rear shields of the Dralthi and bored into her stern. A moment later there was nothing left of her except an expanding cloud of debris. Drake let out a whoop and started lining up his next shot. This sure as hell beat sniping at unarmed tenders or getting pummeled by overwhelming Landreich forces.
The Cats realized their danger and broke in three directions at once. Muttering curses under his breath, Drake pulled right and increased to full power, trying to keep the more maneuverable Dralthi in his sights. He squeezed off several shots, but couldn’t maintain a target lock long enough to have any real effect.
Then the Kilrathi ship he was chasing burst into flame and shards of hull plating as the pilot he’d rescued joined the party. “Whoever you are, thanks for saving my bacon back there,” the Raptor pilot said over the comm channel.
“Glad to help,” Drake said, surprised to find he really meant it. “Check your low two. One of them’s heading in!”
The Raptor turned slowly onto the new vector, and Drake’s Broadsword shot past him, opening fire again. But the Dralthi’s forward shields were better than those protecting the stern, and the Cat pilot made no effort to evade the incoming fire. Instead he fired back, soaking up everything Drake had to give him and countering with his own full-powered beams.
Drake gave a cold grin. The Dralthi’s energy reserves didn’t cycle back to full power as quickly as a Broadsword’s did, and his forward shields were weaker. This Cat wanted to trade body blows? That was fine with him. “Goodbye, puss,” he said, tightening his grip on the trigger on his stick.
It was only then that he spotted the second Dralthi rising from behind the first one, adding its own hellish energies to the onslaught hammering at his forward shields. He barely had time to register the fact before half-a-dozen alarms went off in his cockpit.
After that, Winston Drake knew no more.
Flag Bridge, KIS KLarran
Jump Point Six, Hellhole System
0829 hours (CST)
Admiral Julgar nar Ta’hal could feel the cold claws of the God of the Running Death closing around his throat. “Where in the name of all the Gods are the cruisers?” he demanded.
His aide had to grab on to the back of a chair to steady himself as another hit rocked the carrier. “Closing, Lord Admiral. They have already opened fire on that…ship. Whatever it is.”
“Not enough…and not in time. Who would have conceived of the apes being willing to use a ship that size as a suicide vessel?” Julgar clenched one hand. “We were so close! But we cannot even carry out the original mission now. The Terrans have too big a lead. The scoutship will be out of our reach in a few more minutes, and then they will jump.” He paused. “And Ragark will have my throat.”
On the monitor, they could see the slow but inexorable approach of the ship that looked like a transport, carried fighters like a carrier, but acted now like a deliberate sacrifice on its way to the altar. Bow on and closing, it was plain that it intended to ram, and the Kilrathi carriers vector was such that it would take a minor miracle to outmaneuver the humans.
As Julgar watched, the cruiser Dravnor hammered the Terran ship. Explosions erupted along the vessel’s ventral surface, and a few of the kils in the flag bridge raised a victory chant. The Terran carrier was coming apart…
Too late.
“We have them!” Julgar’s aide shouted.
“Wait,” was Julgar’s low-voiced reply.
Out of the expanding fireball, eights of fragments, each the size of a heavy fighter or larger, were whirling outward. Most retained enough of their original vector to remain on a collision course with the Kilrathi ship.
The chants had not died down when the first of those chunks of twisted metal slammed into the Klarran. The kinetic energy from the Terran ship’s terminal velocity was enough to overwhelm the shields, and as each subsequent piece hit home Klarran shuddered again and again, as if a hand of the Cod of the Running Death had reached out to shake the carrier like a child’s toy.
Bridge, Guild Scoutship Highwayman
Deep Space, Hellhole System
0833 hours (CST)
The bridge had been hulled several times, and the air was gone. Banfeld had his helmet on and his suit fully sealed, but it had taken time. He could feel the blood trickling from his ears and nose, and his throat had been burned raw by decompression. It was an effort to breathe. He suspected lung damage, but he wouldn’t know for sure unless he reached a doctor.
Outside, an FRLN Hornet had latched on to the scout and taken her under tow, while two others flew escort in tight formation. Somehow the computer and the sensor imaging system were still on-line, though precious little beyond that was working on the bridge. Highwayman’s power was nearly exhausted, her fusion plant down, her engines and weapons as useless as the failed stealth system. The internal gravities were out, too, and bodies and wreckage floated weightless in the bridge. He spotted Jonas Hart among them, but he couldn’t recognize any of the other dead from where he was.
The ship’s hull was twisted and shattered in a dozen places. She would never again fare among the stars, on Guild business or any other.
Banfeld pulled himself back into his seat awkwardly, favoring an arm that was probably broken. He strapped himself down one-handed and stabbed at the controls for the sensor systems.
On the monitor, an image of the Bonadventure sprang into focus. Tanaka had done as he’d said, steered her right down the Kilrathi carriers throat. As Banfeld watched she started coming apart, the pieces left from the multiple explosion ripping into the upper half of the Cat ship.
“My poor, poor Guildsmen,” Banfeld croaked. “What have I brought you to?”
The emotions battling inside him proved too much, and he slipped into the black pool of unconsciousness.
Raptor 500, VF-84 “Liberators”
Jump Point Six, Hellhole System
0834 hours (CST)